


she's electric (she's got a family full of eccentrics)

by peachy-chulanont (baby_punk)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Chubby Katsuki Yuuri, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Holiday Themes, Light Angst, Sibling drama, Witch Mila, art student sara, empath yuuri, everything has a resolution, generally fluffy, lots of music references, magic user modern au, plant witch victor, real places and people referenced, yurio jj and otabek play hockey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:28:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 45,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21690418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baby_punk/pseuds/peachy-chulanont
Summary: Sara's looking for her place in the world, feeling stuck and unsatisfied with art school in Brooklyn. She and her twin Michele take their childhood friend Emil up on an offer to move to a small town. She's not prepared for the world she finds there, or the old friends she reconnects with. Slowly, through lots of drawing, time lounging in the plant nursery Viktor and Yuuri own, and coffee, she finds she's known her muse all along.
Relationships: Background JJBella - Relationship, Emil/Michele if you squint, Mila Babicheva/Sara Crispino, Otabek Altin & Yuri Plisetsky, Sara Crispino & Katsuki Yuuri, katsuki yuuri/victor nikiforov (secondary)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	1. Eidolon

**Author's Note:**

> As promised in fall of 2018....
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> title borrowed from the Oasis song of the same name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara and Michele leave Brooklyn for a small town in the woods and a house in need of fixing up with their friend Emil Nekola.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EIDOLON: noun, literary. 1. an idealised person or thing 2. a phantom or insubstantial image  
> In ancient Greek literature, an eidolon is a spirit-image of a living or dead person; a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form.
> 
>  _I crawled out the window and ran into the woods._  
>  _I had to make up all the words myself. The way_  
>  _they taste, the way they sound in the air. I passed_  
>  _through the narrow gate, stumbled in, stumbled_  
>  _around for a while, and stumbled back out. I made_  
>  _this place for you. A place for you to love me._  
>  _If this isn’t the kingdom then I don’t know what is._  
>  (Snow and Dirty Rain, Richard Siken)

Sara was twenty-one, but she hadn’t quite branched out on her own yet. Her whole life, she’d been more or less bound to her family. Their parents – a financial consultant and a journalist – had moved the family from Italy to New York for Mr. Crispino’s job when the twins were ten. They lived in a nice house in Middle Village, where there was a comfortable community of Italian Americans and ex-pats, and all commuted daily around the City. The twins attended first a small international school in Flushing before moving to a public high school in west Brooklyn. Brooklyn, though, was so diverse that the public school felt more international than the Flushing school. It seemed like everyone around knew who the Crispino twins were: never one without the other. But that’s how being a twin went, wasn’t it?

Michele had _always_ been there for Sara – like when they were children, right after moving to America when they were both still getting their footing with speaking English and Sara was terrified of being teased, and then in the years after when boys started to notice Sara and their brazen advances easily left her overwhelmed. Sara didn’t begrudge Michele any of that; on the contrary, she was grateful for his presence in her life, especially after their parents moved back to Naples, leaving the twins to attend university in the States, trusting that they’d take care of one another.

But these days Sara didn’t know how much more of Michele’s over-protection she could take. She could hardly get through a conversation with a man without Michele thundering over, harping on about ‘a woman’s virtue’ and upholding chivalry. His intentions were good, but his execution was flawed. For one, Sara could handle herself – she was an adult, after all, and she had spent more than half her life now in New York, interacting with all walks of life. For another, she wasn’t interested in men in the _slightest_ and no matter how many times she’d tried to bring it up to her twin, he still hadn’t gotten it.

Salvation came when the twins agreed to move from Brooklyn. It was a decision that came first to Sara in secret, when she realized that her classes at Brooklyn College weren’t at all setting her up for the life she wanted, and then separately to Michele, whose friend Emil Nekola was looking for a housemates to share the small colonial-style house he was going to be fixing up for a family friend. They’d all live in the house for the rest of the summer, the end of which should see the completion of repairs on the house, and then Emil would return to school in Geneva and the twins would continue leasing the house on their own. Emil was a good guy with the personality of a labrador retriever and a deep, inexplicable affinity for hiking, extreme sports, and Michele (which amused Sara to no end, considering how prickly and boring her twin was). The house in question was set just outside a small town called Eidolon.

When she did a quick google search, nothing came up right away for the central New York town. From what Sara could tell, it was a speck of dust on the map, really more of a hamlet than anything, probably comprised mostly of people who wanted to be somewhere else. There were a smattering of ghost stories and entries into cryptid and unexplained phenomena websites that popped up during her search, but Sara ignored those. If Eidolon turned out to be a new start for them, she didn’t want to nip it in the bud by mentioning anything out of the ordinary to Michele. And it was natural to be wary – safe, even. Michele definitely was. So if there was any chance of the Crispino twins leaving Brooklyn, it all rested with Sara.

Emil was certain that this was a good path to follow, though, and he told them so. The owner of the little house, Josef Karpíšek, was a businessman in Saratoga who dabbled in owning and renting out houses. He’d apparently hired Emil to help get this house in shape for renters as a way of discreetly funding Emil’s extreme sports hobbies (this is what Sara inferred, anyway; Emil simply insisted that Karpíšek was a family friend who needed a hand). Emil wasn’t a builder; he was a nineteen year old college student. However, his dad was a carpenter by trade and he’d grown up helping him with projects and spent a few summers volunteering on job sites and, from what Sara understood, Emil was proficient with tools. That was all that seemed to matter to Karpíšek, and Sara wasn’t going to question it.

Emil knew a little more about the town of Eidolon than the internet and he was able to fill Sara in on the intricacies of it. He said it had been around since colonial times, but was overlooked for the slightly larger, more important villages and towns, and easily lost in the thick surrounding forest. Really, it wasn’t the boondocks or anything like that, Emil assured Sara. There was a bustling main street with a fair assortment of shops, and due to the small public liberal arts college the next town over, a good portion of Eidolon’s residents were college age. And hearing about the college – one that readily available information online showed was leading in the region for design classes and home to some well-endowed teaching grant – was what really sold Sara. All she had to do was turn her puppy eyes on Michele and pick a date for Emil to meet them in Brooklyn with his pickup truck. They were moving to Eidolon.

  
  


☾

  
  


Of course there were a number of things to put in place – withdrawing from Brooklyn College, terminating the lease on the small apartment the twins shared, explaining to their parents what they were doing and why it wouldn’t be the ruination of their career plans, saying goodbyes to the owners of the bodega on the corner and classmates in study groups, and packing up the mess they’d accumulated over the years, to name a few – but finally, _finally_ , the Crispinos were squeezing into the cab of Emil’s truck and making the drive upstate.

Emil drove a peeling-orange-painted truck that had probably been looking rough even in the mid-nineties. There was a Little Tree air-freshner hanging from the rearview mirror, but Sara knew that even without it Emil would smell like pine trees and fresh air. That’s how it always was with him. He had grown a beard since the last time Sara had seen him face to face (in Saratoga nearly a year ago for a tennis match of Michele’s), and it scratched against her cheek when he gave her a kiss hello. Michele had bristled at that until Emil had thrown an arm around his shoulders and hauled him in for a smacking kiss to each of his cheeks, just to outdo his greeting to Sara. Michele quieted after that, his hand finding its way to touch his cheek where Emil had kissed him a moment later. Sara had to bite back a laugh. Her twin was hopeless.

“This is new,” she had said instead, tugging on Emil’s short beard.

Emil’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled, and he had put his hands on his hips to strike a triumphant pose. “Do you like it?”

Sara pretended to consider this, making a show of tapping her forefinger to her lips. “ _Well_ ,” she began, but didn’t get the chance to finish.

Michele reached over her to grab Emil’s jaw, turning his face this way and that. The iridescent stars on the band-aid Emil had plastered over his nose caught the sunlight each time Michele turned his face but Emil let him, his smile widening until it was open in a laugh.

“You look older,” Michele said finally, his eyes narrowed.

Emil shrugged, unfazed and still smiling. “It didn’t take too long to grow. Maybe you should try.”

  
  


☾

  
  


The house was cute, if not a little sad-looking. The small porch drooped, the paint was peeling, and the shutters needed fixing. Inside, the wallpaper was stained and in need of replacing, the floorboards creaked, and the radiators rattled. The ceilings seemed a touch too low, and the doorways and staircase were narrow. Most of the rooms were connected by doorways instead of hallways, and the floors were almost all a dark, whorl-marked hardwood. Sara like it immensely, from the crown molding to the foggy old glass of the windows to the angle of the ceiling in her attic loft bedroom. It was clear that Emil would have his work set out for him, though.

After all the time it took to pack their things in boxes, Sara had expected that it would take just as long to get settled. But on the contrary, it wasn’t hard to unpack. There was a chest of drawers already set against the wall, and a four-poster bed that just needed her mattress to arrive and go on it. A box of blankets and throw pillows was open but unemptied and the bulk her knickknacks were scattered over the top of the dresser. There was an envelope of Instax photos and post cards waiting there to be hung somewhere on the wall, but Sara couldn’t find where she’d put tacks, clothespins, or twine. She didn’t quite have the patience to start on setting her bookcase up, either, not yet. Sara was itching to go out and look around Eidolon, to see what even the internet hadn’t even been able to show her.

Downstairs, Michele was still meticulously putzing around the house, determined to poke around every nook and cranny before he would unpack all his things. Emil was sitting on the kitchen counter, watching Michele and bouncing his heels on the cabinets. It seemed like Michele was dictating a list of improvements to Emil, and Emil was placidly nodding along.

“I think the curtains in the kitchen should be a solid color, _no_ patterns. And Emil, you’ve got to get rid of this wallpaper as soon as possible.”

“Got it, Mickey.”

“Don’t you think you should be taking notes?”

“I’ll remember. And if I don’t, I’m sure you’ll tell me again,” Emil smiled and reached out to pat Michele on the shoulder as he walked through the kitchen, frowning at the linoleum floor.

“Are you planning on replacing this?” Michele asked, scuffing at it with his toe. “Seriously, what was with Americans in the sixties?”

Sara answered for Emil, stepping off the last stair and coming to stand next to the counter where Emil sat. “Give it a rest, Mickey, we only _just_ got here. Have you even started unpacking?”

Michele gave his twin a reproachful look, as if she’d caught him in a lie. “No,”

“Well, too bad,” Sara said, rolling her eyes. “I’m ready to go in to town. Don’t you want to explore?”

“Not really,” Michele muttered, just on this side of pouting. “I’m still looking around here.”

Emil slid off the counter. “I’ll take you to town, if you want, Sara.”

Immediately, Michele was on the defense. “Whoa, whoa, Emil, I don’t know about that...” Sara tried her best to squash the tendril of irritation rising in the pit of her stomach. This wasn’t his decision to make, especially when she knew where this was headed. “I don’t know what kind of people are in that town,” Michele continued, “and I don’t want anyone messing with my baby sister.”

Emil exchanged a sidelong glance with Sara before smiling reassuringly at Michele. “I promise it’s all good people. Well, statistically speaking, maybe there’s some bad ones in there, but everyone _I’ve_ met has been pretty cool. Don’t you trust me?”

“And don’t you trust _me_?” Sara cut in – in her opinion, this was the more important question, anyway.

Michele sighed heavily, obviously pained. They were silent, waiting for him to make up his mind. After what seemed like a _ridiculously_ long time to be pondering your sister and your best friend going on a drive, Michele nodded. “Fine. You two go, and _I’ll_ wait here for the U-Haul guy. Emil, you’re sure you gave him the right address?”

“I’m sure!” Emil called over his shoulder, escaping in a way that belied the patient face he’d been putting on. Sara darted over to give Michele a kiss on the cheek goodbye, and then they were out the door and off to town.

  
  


☾

  
  


The orange of Emil’s Hobart Varsity Lacrosse sweatshirt matched his truck. Sara wondered idly if he’d had his school colors in mind when he purchased the truck as they turned around on the long drive and headed down the tree-lined road to town. Emil rolled the windows down, and the smell of cut grass wafted through the cab of the truck. The wind whipped away snatches of the old Replacements CD playing through the fuzzy truck speakers. Really, they could’ve walked to Main Street from the house – there weren’t many cars out, and it was a pleasant day for the middle of June (nowhere near as stinky and steamy as Brooklyn had been that morning).

“Do you need to go anywhere in particular?” Sara asked as they turned on to Main, which was clearly the hub of the village.

“Not urgently,” Emil said, glancing over at her. “I’ll probably go in to the hardware store before we head back to the house, but I thought we’d just walk around, if that’s cool with you.”

Sara smiled. “That sounds perfect. I’ve probably got to pick up some things there, too.”

There was nothing that really jumped out at Sara when she hopped out of Emil’s truck. As far as she could tell, Eidolon was just like any other small town. It reminded her a little of the North Fork of Long Island when the Crispinos had driven out for a series of winery tours. Emil and Sara left the truck parked in front of the hardware store and started down the sidewalk. The shops were housed either individually or in pairs in old buildings that appeared to be apartments on the upper floors, all with unique but similar paint jobs and fixtures. As they walked, Sara picked out two bookshops on either side of the road, and a handful of restaurants with people sitting in tables outside. There was one boutique that had a vaguely familiar name, but Sara wasn’t interested enough to stop inside. Emil walked placidly next to her, providing comfortable silence and companionship. He didn’t urge her to go into any of the shops like Michele no doubt would have, but he did occasionally point out interesting window displays or greet passersby.

There was a small bakery on the corner that looked inviting, but Sara couldn’t justify going in when she wasn’t particularly hungry. She made a mental note, though, to revisit the idea of going in in case she and Emil decided Mickey needed a peace offering for when they returned to the house. The street perpendicular to Main street was also home to shops, so at Emil’s suggestion they crossed over. There was a little more activity here; one of the larger storefronts clearly belonged to a toy store and was surrounded by children and their parents, most of whom seemed to be enjoying ice cream from a parlor a few doors down. Sara smiled at the snatches of excited conversation that were drifting down the street.

“Can you remember being that little?”

Emil looked over consideringly at Sara. “Well, I remember when _Mickey_ was about that size,”

Sara laughed. It was true that they had been thirteen and eleven, respectively, when they met Emil at one of Michele’s intramural tennis matches when Emil had been visiting his grandparents down the road from the park. The kids in front of the toy store were perhaps a few years younger than they had been, but all the same it brought a heavy wave of nostalgia. Still, it figured that Michele was what featured most in Emil’s memory. Their friendship had always been that way.

Past the ice cream parlor was an annexed coffee shop, a pet supply store, and between the two, a roomy-looking plant nursery called the Victory Garden. For the first time that afternoon, Sara felt inspired to peek inside. The idea of having houseplants, of covering the water-warped windowsills with pots of succulents and hanging baskets of flowers around the kitchen, was intensely appealing, and she said as much to Emil.

“Well by all means, then, let’s check it out. I think that’s probably one of the only shops around here that I haven’t been in.”

“You’ve even been in the pet store? When’s the last time you had a pet, Emil?” Sara laughed.

Emil shrugged in a helpless sort of way, and Sara was still giggling when she pushed the door to the Victory Garden open. The bell over the heavy door chimed, not an obnoxious electronic sound, just a soft, real chime, and for some reason it made her want to stop and laugh more. Emil was right behind her, though, so Sara stepped properly inside. It was warm, but not overwhelmingly so, and everything seemed to be washed in soft green light with plants on every surface. White wire bookshelves lined one wall, chock-full of books with colorful spines with illustrations of plants wrapping on to some. There were tables set in rows that reminded Sara of her high school chem lab, except these were covered in displays of succulents, small cuttings, pots, and seeds. At the back of the room, which was really about the size of the small apartment she’d left behind in Brooklyn, there was an open doorway with signs painted with arrows. Apparently the real plant nursery was out back.

Standing by the bookshelf with a cardboard box of books waiting to be shelved was the owner of the shop. When he turned around to greet Sara and Emil, Sara thought that perhaps she was imagining things.

“Hello, welcome,” he said cheerily, eyes darting between their faces. There was a small crease between his brows – did he recognize her? Excitement was bubbling in Sara’s chest.

“Wait – _Yuuri_? Yuuri Katsuki?”

The crease deepened. “Do I – _oh_ my god. _Sara_?”

“Yes!” Sara cried, rushing across the room to embrace Yuuri. He hugged her back, just as warm and perfect as she’d remembered his hugs being in high school. “I can’t believe it,”

“Yeah, what a coincidence,” Yuuri smiled as Sara drew away.

“How long has it been? You look the same, honestly – happier, though.”

Yuuri rubbed the back of his neck, looking abruptly sheepish. He’d graduated when Sara was a sophomore, but the two years they’d been together in high school had been a fantastic time for her. “Too long, probably. I’m awful at keeping in touch, and I know you must’ve been busy all these years,”

Sara shrugged. “Probably not as busy as you. Cornell, right?”

“Hey, you remembered!” there were two little pink spots on his cheeks. “I didn’t think anyone would. I mean, who decides to go to school for _botany_?”

“Of _course_ I remembered,” Sara chuckled, “you were my friend! I was so proud when you got that huge scholarship – and from the looks of it, the degree worked out?”

Yuuri was smiling again. “Yeah! This was just a hobby idea when I was an undergrad, but my husband and I really fell in love with it.”

Sara’s jaw dropped. “Husband? You got _married_? Wow, I guess we’re _really_ not teenagers anymore,”

Yuuri laughed, too. He really did look more or less the same as he had in high school – the same shaggy hair, the same shaped glasses, the same round face that still showed the line of his cheekbones. But he was so much lighter and smiled so much more easily than she remembered. It brought Sara a kind of elation she hadn’t expected, seeing her old friend so happy.

“Yeah, we did get married kinda young, but I think it was a good call. He’s around here, somewhere, probably out back talking to the seedlings – but hey, I’m being rude, who’s your friend?”

“Emil Nekola,” Emil said immediately, coming forward and holding his hand out to shake. Sara had almost forgotten him in her excitement at seeing her old friend, and a wave of embarrassment fell over her.

“Oh, I’m _such_ an airhead. Yuuri, this is Emil Nekola, my brother’s best friend. We all just moved into a house outside of town. Emil, this is Yuuri Katsuki, one of my closest friends in high school. Though,” Sara said, directing her attention to Yuuri, “I should ask, are you still ‘Katsuki’?”

“We hyphenated,” Yuuri said, biting his lip though a dimple still popped up in his cheek. “It’s Katsuki- _Nikiforov_ now.”

“Did someone call me?”

They all looked over to the open doorway to the nursery where a handsome, platinum-haired man was coming through, grinning widely. Sara had to clamp her mouth shut so she wouldn’t drop her jaw. She could appreciate, even as a lesbian, that Yuuri’s husband was like a Russian god. He had an arm held out for Yuuri before he had crossed half the room, and when he did get to Yuuri’s side, he pressed a smacking kiss on the crown of his head.

“ _Vitya_ ,” Yuuri chastised, his hand on his husband’s chest but not pushing him away, his cheeks flushing pink once more. “We have _customers_ ,”

“Friends,” Sara corrected, holding her hand out. “I’m Sara Crispino, I went to high school with Yuuri,”

“Oh! It’s a pleasure to meet you then,” the man said, his smile like a heart as he gave her hand a firm shake. This close to him, Sara could smell his cologne – it was a pleasant combination of roses and bergamot. “I’m Viktor Katsuki-Nikiforov.”

After Emil and Viktor were introduced, Viktor tilted his head conspiratorially toward Sara’s. “Now I know what you’re wondering,” he said, “You wondering how such a beautiful, perfect man ended up with someone so _average_.” For a moment, Sara wasn’t sure what she was hearing, but she caught Yuuri rolling his eyes and looked up at Viktor to see that _his_ eyes were locked on his husband. “I don’t have an answer for you, except that maybe I was really, _really_ good in a past life and this is my gift.”

Sara was rendered momentarily speechless. Was this real? People were really that loving and earnest in real life?

Yuuri was positively tomato-colored now. “ _Vitya_ , oh my gosh,”

Emil was looking between them, smiling in a wondering sort of way. “You guys are so lucky,”

Viktor turned away from Yuuri to blink at Emil. It must have been a shock, to have a gangly boy-man who was ostensibly a jock to make a positive comment on public affection, especially between two men. But Emil, who was as genuine as they came, didn’t laugh or lose his smile, and Viktor’s face relaxed.

“We are. It’s… magical, finding someone who fits one’s soul so perfectly.”

“Soulmates, huh? Interesting idea,” Sara said, looking over at Yuuri.

He was always so analytical and straight-laced about metaphysical things when they were in high school, preferring the solidity of science and fact to myth and legend. But Yuuri only winked and said, “More than you know,”

“So, Emil,” Viktor was saying, “can I ask you about Hobart? I have a cousin who lives in town and he’s an incoming senior in high school but hasn’t settled on where he wants to go.”

“Well, that depends – would your cousin happen to be involved in any sports?”

  
  


☾

  
  


When Sara and Emil got to the hardware store at the end of the block, they were still talking about Viktor’s cousin, Yuri Plisetsky. Apparently, he was something of a county hero for his hockey playing – which Viktor had some definite opinions about (he expressed at least three times during their conversation that he was worried about Yuri making it to his thirties with teeth. Each time this happened, Yuuri pulled a face that had Sara wondering if this was a favorite thing of Viktor’s to fuss about). Emil, though, was bouncing on the balls of his feet as they walked, obviously excited about the prospect of introducing someone new to his school.

“Just think,” he was saying as they entered the store, “If he gets in to Hobart, then we can go back together at the end of summer! And return to Eidolon together, too! Wouldn’t that be great for a freshman?”

Sara had commuted to college from her own apartment in Brooklyn, so she couldn’t exactly relate, but she didn’t want to crush Emil’s spirits. “It really would be, Emil. But maybe you should _meet_ the kid first?”

Emil stopped abruptly, looking over at Sara with an eyebrow raised. “You know, you’re right.”

Sara rolled her eyes and gestured for Emil to lead the way around the store. She had no idea what Emil even needed for the house, much less what half of what he said in regards to it meant, but she did her best to listen all the same.

“You said you needed some things?” Emil prompted, not looking up from the assortment of sandpaper on one of the high shelves.

Sara blinked. “Yeah, I was going to look for tacks and twine, that sort of thing.”

“I’ll be around here, probably, if you wanna go find what you need. But maybe get some Command hooks instead of tacks, if it’s gonna be a lot,” Emil said, giving her one of his sweet-eyed grins.

Sara reached up to pat his bicep. “Got it, boss,”

It wasn’t too hard to locate a spool of twine and clothespins, but the Command hooks were harder. Sara wandered a little, not looking in earnest, resolving instead to just have Emil find them for her. Instead, she was seeking out the corner of the store where the paint lived, guided by a tall display that she could just see over the shelves. Sara didn’t pay attention to what was at her level until she was out of the safety of the shelving.

There was a young woman, probably about Sara’s age, standing in front of the display of paint chips. Sara stopped in her tracks. The paint section was always her go-to place whenever she ended up in a hardware store, but usually if there were other people, they weren’t on their own – they wouldn’t notice her. No one really noticed her when she was alone in Brooklyn. But here in Eidolon, this woman was bound to see Sara. And what then? Would she say hello? Would she make small talk? Sara was awful at small talk when it came to girls. But it would be worse, she reasoned, if the redhead said nothing at all. She’d feel like she failed some test. The only thing to do would be to make the first move. But what to say?

All while Sara was mentally fretting, she was standing stock-still just a few feet behind and to the right of the auburn-haired woman. And now, probably feeling that she was being watched, the redhead turned to look over her shoulder, right at Sara. And oh, _man_ , was she stunning. She blinked twice at Sara, then a small smile started working onto her lips.

“Sorry,” the redhead said with an Eastern European accent, not taking her eyes away from Sara’s, “am I in your way? I love these things, sometimes I start hogging the whole display without realizing it.” She giggled in a self-deprecating way, and Sara’s stomach exploded into butterflies. It would be rude not to reply, so Sara would have to swallow her misgivings.

“You’re not in my way at all,” she said, mustering her own small smile, “I just didn’t want to interrupt,”

The redhead raised an eyebrow, her smile turning just a little lopsided. “By all means, join me!”

Sara dipped her head and crossed the floor to stand next to the redhead. They were about the same height, it seemed, with Sara being just slightly taller. Sara couldn’t help but try and subtly check the redhead out as they lapsed into companionable silence. She was wearing a black Sisters Of Mercy shirt faded gray with the sleeves cut off, showing off defined biceps that had Sara’s heart beating a little faster, and there was a baseball cap folded up and shoved into her back pocket. _She looks so cool._

Sara did her best to refocus on the task at hand (which, aside from killing time while Emil found the rest of what he needed, was really more about picking paint chips to stick on her wall than it was about picking colors to actually paint the house with). The redhead was facing the warm colors on display, apparently deeply studying them, and Sara had the cool colors in front of her. Sara reached out to pluck a goldenrod color from the display without thinking, just, apparently, as the redhead was reaching for a blue-green. Their hands brushed as they crossed, and just that slight touch of skin sent a jolt through Sara’s body. The redhead pulled her hand back like she’d been burned. Sara hissed a sharp breath in, though it hadn’t hurt – it had been like touching the wing of a passing honeybee, or catching the blade of a handheld fan.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you,” the redhead said, her blue eyes wide and earnest, lips slightly parted as if she might say something more. She had her hand hovering centimeters away from Sara, like she wanted to rest her hand on her arm but was afraid of shocking her again – though that hadn’t felt like any electric shock Sara remembered receiving before.

“Oh, don’t worry!” Sara said reflexively, smiling reassuringly. “It didn’t hurt or anything. Sort of funny, though,”

“Hmm?” the redhead hummed, turning her head a little to the side. “How do you mean?”

“Oh,” Sara repeated, afraid she’d said something wrong. But she shrugged slightly and rocked her weight back onto her right leg and gestured down at the floor, where their toes were less than a foot apart, pointing to each other like they were both ballerinas with one foot in first position. “Well, the floor is concrete, and we’re both in rubber-soled shoes. It’s funny that you or I picked up enough static electricity to get, you know, shocked.”

The redhead nodded slowly, dragging her eyes up from Sara’s feet to meet her eyes. _Is she checking me out? Does she like girls? Oh man I’m over my head._ “Static electricity... you’re right, how strange.”

“But again, I’m fine,” Sara said, filled with the need to reassure this lovely stranger. _And if I don’t introduce myself now, I never will, and I know I’ll regret it._ “And, uh, I’m Sara,”

“Sara.” The redhead repeated, looking down at Sara’s hand for a heartbeat before enveloping it in her own. The redhead’s handshake was firm and cool. There was no weird shock this time, but Sara’s stomach was awash in tingles all the same. “I’m Mila, Mila Babicheva. Are you new here? I don’t think I’ve seen you around Eidolon before.”

_Mila_. Sara was smiling again, in spite of herself. “Yeah, we moved in today.”

Mila’s hand paused in the middle of running through her hair. She had an undercut cleverly hidden by the rest of her hair. “Oh, ‘we’?”

Sara’s words almost jumbled together in her haste to reassure this woman that she hadn’t moved with a partner. As _if_ she was interested in her. “I’m sharing a house with my twin and his best friend,”

Mila smiled, showing her long canine teeth. But she was rocking back, away from Sara. “How neat. Well, I’ll see you around?”

Sara couldn’t look away, even as Mila raised her small stack of collected paint chips like a salute. “For sure.”

Mila held Sara’s eyes even as she was clearly leaving, walking backwards for several steps before turning and disappearing around the corner. Sara stood in front of the paint chips, no longer interested in their color, but pondering the interaction. Had Mila even left with what she needed, or had Sara scared her away? And what was it that Sara herself needed, anyway? Her mind felt like it was in a fog, and she kept seeing the flash of teeth from that last smile Mila gave her, kept feeling the phantom of whatever kind of shock that had been when their hands brushed.

  
  


☾

  
  


That weekend, Emil convinced the Crispinos to wake up early to go poke around at local yard sales. It’s what people did, he explained, in small towns like this. Sara agreed amicably, not having plans anyway, though Michele took a little more convincing. In the end, it was a comment Emil made about meeting people – a veiled usage of his overprotection of Sara as leverage, which Sara understood and resented all the same – that coaxed Michele into coming along. With the local paper, turned to a page dedicated to yard sale announcements, in hand, the trio climbed into Emil’s old orange truck and headed into town. Sara had ventured out with Emil again after the first trip into town to visit the grocery store, but other than that, she hadn’t seen much of Eidolon. Michele had seen even less than her.

He wasn’t _really_ a homebody like his behavior these first days in Eidolon suggested; in Brooklyn, he’d had the tennis club and friends at school that he would meet around the borough for coffee or brunch. Michele’s priority, though, had always been ‘protecting’ Sara. And it was true that when they were young, she had needed him. How long had it been before Sara had started standing up for herself, how long had it taken her to get a handle on her self-consciousness? But now, Sara didn’t need to run to Michele to fight her battles, and she didn’t need him to be her friend like he had when she had had no one else. Michele didn’t quite understand that, no matter the hints Sara tried to give him, but the move to Eidolon had definitely marked a shift in their dynamic. He watched her interact with Emil from across the small dinner table each night, and though he didn’t get on Emil’s case much anymore for paying attention to Sara, he also didn’t seem to know what to do with the version of Sara that wasn’t the defenseless little girl he’d tended to see her as all these years.

So it was with Michele brooding in a stereotypically Italian way that they got on the road to their first yard sale. Sara was playing at being navigator, plugging addresses into her phone with one hand and trying not to spill her mug of coffee with the other (there weren’t any travel mugs in the little house, and Sara couldn’t find where she’d packed hers from Brooklyn. The shocks on Emil’s truck made this a somewhat perilous decision to have made, but Emil was laughing about it and soon Sara was, too).

There wasn’t a massive amount of yard sales – how could there be, with such a small township? – but Emil was still hoping to find old tools to add to the small collection he’d been accruing in his work on the house. They’d be going all over Eidolon and a little outside of it, Emil explained to the twins (though only Sara was giving him her full attention; Michele was pretending he was asleep). When he mentioned that they would go by the little art college that had drawn Sara into agreeing to come to Eidolon in the first place, her interest was piqued. She’d sent in an application immediately after they made the decision to move, but her plans weren’t all ironed out. She hadn’t even seen the campus in person.

Michele stayed in the truck at the first yard sale, and Sara trailed after Emil as he navigated the tables of stuff and peppered with questions. Emil was used to being the one who followed, and he didn’t have all the answers Sara was looking for, but he answered as much as he could. Yes, he was sure she’d be fine with credit transfers, especially because she’d had them done before leaving Brooklyn College. No, he didn’t think this was a mistake. Yes, there would surely be plenty of opportunities for her to pursue art – it was an art school, after all. Sara’s concerns for the end of summer, still July and August away, were greatly assuaged by the time they returned to the truck empty handed. Michele was done pretending to be asleep and had the newspaper in hand.

“I think we should try this one next,” he said, tapping a highlighted address. Sara smiled. Life in Eidolon would be fine.

  
  


☾

  
  


At what they had decided would be their last stop before returning to the house, Sara caught a familiar dark blue eye. _Is that the girl from the hardware store?_ she wondered, taking a step toward her without thinking. But Emil called her name, and when Sara turned around to raise her eyebrow at him, Mila disappeared. Sara stalked over to where Emil was beckoning, feeling a mixture of warm tingles at the way Mila had smirked, the edge of her teeth just visible, and irritated at Emil’s awfully timed interruption. But how could he have known? And more pressing – where had Mila disappeared to?

It was hard to be irritated at Emil, with his perpetual puppy-dog demeanor. And when he was standing, chest puffed out proudly, in front of a yellow bike propped against a dresser. There was a tag hanging off one of the handlebars.

“I was thinking, you know, when you start classes in the fall, I’ll be back in Geneva and won’t be able to drive you. But, get this – maybe you can bike! You know how to ride a bike, right?”

Sara blinked. It had been years since she’d ridden a bike, probably not since her childhood in Middle Village – but people always said that bike riding was something that always came back to you. “Emil, it’s a fantastic idea,” she said, throwing her arms around his waist and hugging him close.

Emil laughed and patted her on the back. “I’ll go find the person collecting money, you stand here so people will know you claimed it.”

Sara nodded and let him go. There weren’t too many people at this house, but it was best to do as Emil suggested. She had no idea how these things usually worked, anyway. His absence also gave her time to inspect the bike. It was the color of a ripe banana and there were a few dings on it, but nothing major. She’d start riding it around their driveway until she got back into the hang of it, and then – _then_ , Sara would have a new little piece of autonomy.

“That’s a sweet ride you’ve found there.”

Sara couldn’t help but jump at the voice from over her shoulder. There was Mila, the redhead from the hardware store, smiling cheekily back at her. Sara’s heart was threatening to beat through her chest, but she did her best to return the smile. “You think so? I haven’t had a bike since I was probably twelve, so I can’t be sure.”

Mila nodded in an exaggerated way, pretending to examine the bike for Sara. “Yeah, looks pretty solid to me. You gonna bust out some BMX tricks with this baby?” she asked with a mock-serious expression. Sara was so surprised that she snorted into a peal of laughter.

“Oh! No, no, I’m flattered, but I’ll leave that to Emil. He’s a daredevil, you know.”

“Emil?” Mila tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. Emil might look like a puppy when he made that face, but Mila just looked hot.

Sara’s eyes widened. She hadn’t introduced them, had she? _I’ve got to stop forgetting to do that._ “Yeah, he’s – he’s around here somewhere. I think I mentioned when we met that I’m living with my brother and his best friend. Emil is the friend. And my brother is – well, I have no clue where he went off to.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Mila said, nodding again, “I don’t think I’d gotten their names before. Which, I guess, makes sense. You can’t give everything away all at once, right? Gotta stay mysterious.”

Sara bit her lip so she wouldn’t giggle. Mila seemed so sage about this, the way she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. _She_ was the mysterious one. It didn’t take long for her to drop her chin and grin, though.

“Everyone is a little mysterious, huh? The town, all of it. ‘Eidolon’? The _name_ is mysterious! But if you, you know, wanted to get to know the place a little better, I could, uh, show you around.”

Sara had a response formulated and on the tip of her tongue, ready to explain that Emil had shown her around, when she realized what was happening. “You – you’d do that?”

Was that a blush on Mila’s cheeks, or was the morning sun just giving her color? But no, she was wearing a worn-out baseball cap. That wasn’t the sun. When she nodded, the loose waves of hair around her face bounced as Sara ran a hand through her own hair almost unconsciously.

“I’d be really happy to,”

Internally, Sara was crowing excitedly. _She wants to spend time with me, she wants to show me around!_ She chewed on her upper lip, unable to look away from Mila’s dark blue eyes, trying to push words past her tongue but losing them in her smile instead. The moment she was ready to say something properly flirty and gracious, though, they were interrupted by a harsh call of Mila’s name.

“Baba, I’ve been _calling_ you,” snapped a tallish blond teen whose hand on his hip made him look seconds away from stomping his feet like a toddler. He had wide, high cheekbones and narrow, bright eyes almost lost in his deep scowl.

Mila flushed scarlet. “Shit, Yurio, I didn’t hear you,”

“Obviously,” he sneered, not looking at all in Sara’s direction before launching in to rapid-fire Russian.

Mila closed her eyes for a heartbeat and turned her head away from the teen. She reached out and touched Sara’s shoulder, expression soft even as the teen’s tone became a bit more like a growl.

“Sara,” she said, voice even but obviously strained, “I completely forgot about something I promised Yurio I’d do with him, and I’ve got to run. I’m serious about taking you out – showing you around, you know. I hate to run like this – but listen, you know The Victory Garden? The owners, Viktor and Yuuri, are having a little get-together tomorrow, you should definitely come! I know it’s weird, but you can just tell them I invited you–”

“I know them! I went to school with Yuuri,” Sara said, reaching up to put her hand on Mila’s wrist where it still rested against Sara’s shoulder.

“Oh you do? Fantastic! Bring your friend, it’ll be fun. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Six-ish.” Yuri had taken Mila by the arm and was starting to haul her away.

“Tomorrow.” Sara’s smile was faltering and she knew it. Mila looked sympathetic, but with a little wave, she and the blond were gone.

  
  


☾

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Yuuri went to high school with the Crispinos and went off to college where he met Viktor. I couldn't work it into dialogue, but you better believe his roommate was one Phichit Chulanont.
> 
> Let me know what you think so far! This has been my continued YOI project, since I haven't worked with BTSATS in over a year. Can you tell I'm ready for Ice Ado?


	2. Talk of Nokken and Avery Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Celebrating the Summer Solstice with Viktor, Yuuri, and some other familiar faces. Sara gets a job.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dimmed down, by the light in the hall_   
>  _We were dancing in the dark, we danced to nothing at all_   
>  _Stumbling, my cold feet_   
>  _Oh my knees went weak when you looked to me_   
>  _But for you, I'm a fool and more_

Understandably, Michele was dubious about the whole thing when Sara explained it, sitting between him and Emil on the drive back to the house. “I don’t know, Sara. You know I didn’t like that Yuuri Katsuki when we were in high school.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “Mickey, you didn’t like him because you thought he wanted to date me. This is a party he’s throwing with his _husband_ , so really, you have no ground to stand on.”

“That kid sounds aggressive, what if he’s there?”

“ _Mickey_ , you didn’t even meet the kid. I think he was just agitated because Mila forgot they had an errand to run. And really, are you going to let yourself be intimidated by a high-schooler?”

Michele crossed his arms and pointedly looked out the window, pouting. Sara felt a glimmer of hope – pouting usually meant her brother was coming around and just didn’t want to admit it. She glanced over at Emil, and he winked. Things would work out.

  
  


☾

  
  


Actually driving in to town a little past six was the nerve wracking bit.

First, Sara hadn’t known what to wear. Then, after settling with a sun dress, she had had another argument with Michele, who still found the whole situation strange and was subsequently balking. It was hard to argue that everything was absolutely normal when Sara herself felt intimidated by showing up to a party with a second-hand invitation, never mind that Yuuri had been a good friend of hers in high school.

Emil was ready to do as the twins instructed, though, his mood even and grounding. It was probably his calming influence that finally got Michele to groan dramatically, put his shoes on, and get in the truck.

Sara’s fears about being unwanted or unexpected at the Katsuki-Nikiforov party were nipped in the bud as soon as they pulled up to park in front of The Victory Garden. Mila was standing by the door, fiddling with her phone and obviously waiting for them. Just seeing her, red hair pulled back in a braid to show a shaved undercut, black tunic and black leggings in spite of the still-bright summer sun and scuffed yellow Doc Martins on top of it all, made Sara’s heart race. _Oh, man._

“Sara!” Mila called as soon as Sara climbed out of the truck (having climbed over her brother in her haste to be away from his broodiness and into Mila’s company).

Sara slipped away from Michele, who was trying to catch her by the wrist, and dashed from the pavement from the sidewalk, just stopping short of throwing herself into Mila’s arms. “Hi, Mila! Um, before I forget, that’s my twin, Michele,” she said, pointing to where he was slowly getting out of Emil’s truck, “and I haven’t introduced you but I know I’ve mentioned Emil, that’s him.”

Mila waved and smiled dutifully before turning back to Sara. “I’m so sorry I was vague yesterday, you probably would’ve liked more information. We – Yuuri, Viktor, Yurio, and sometimes Nikolai Plisetsky and sometimes Chris – have little gatherings on the solstices and equinoxes, and some of the larger solar events. It’s not a big deal, but Yuuri and Viktor are really excited that you’re coming,”

Sara had a number of questions, but she was afraid of being rude. But really, she’d never met people who celebrated solstices beyond midsummer celebrations for John the Baptists. Weren’t solstices just like any other day? Perhaps it was a Slavic thing. Instead of asking about it, she thought of the scowling blond teenager and how he must be the cousin Viktor had mentioned earlier in the week. “How do you know them?”

Mila shrugged. “Viktor and I have the same, um, godfather, and we were all very close in Russia before he moved here. Yurio is Viktor’s cousin, and he grew up here with their grandfather – Nikolai. Viktor of course went to Cornell for school, and I’m the last of our little bunch to come to New York – I was permitted a gap year, so here I am.”

Sara raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t expected to be intruding on a family gathering, and she hadn’t realized Mila was younger than her. “So you just arrived in New York in the spring?”

“ _Oh_ , no,” Mila chuckled, “I’ve been here for _ages_. Graduated from Eidolon High a year ago – this is my second year of Eidolon. So,” she nodded to Emil and Michele, who had finally come up to flank Sara, “shall we go on up?”

The twins and Emil followed Mila as she opened the door to the shop, explaining that the apartment access was down the hall as she breezed through. Michele looked around suspiciously, having never been inside any of the shops in town and most likely trying to align his memory of Yuuri from high school with the whimsical aura of the nursery. Sara extended her stride so she was on Mila’s heels, hungry for her attention.

Mila smiled over her shoulder as she opened the door to a stairwell, keeping her eyes on Sara’s for a heartbeat. “I said I was the last of us, but forgot to mention one. There’s one more of Yakov’s godchildren, he went to school in the city and is some kind of stage actor. We don’t see him much, but maybe for the Winter Solstice. I know we’re probably a strange bunch to you, but maybe you’ll understand better if you meet Georgi.”

“You’re not strange at all!” Sara was quick to assure Mila, who was a step ahead of her.

Mila only laughed, looking again over her shoulder back at Sara. “It doesn’t matter anyway, huh?” Her canine tooth seemed to glint, even in the low light, and Sara shivered. _She’s the mysterious one._ It was exciting. Michele grumbling under his breath in Italian, clearly intending for his sister to hear, was the only thing that kept Sara for feeling caught up in a dream.

At the top of the stairs, Mila pushed a door open with her hip and stepped up and to the side to hold it open, calling a greeting to whoever was in the room. It was as if she’d opened the door to a gold-lit world, one awash in snatches of laughter and music. Sara followed to enter into a kitchen, very nearly treading on the paw of a massive brown poodle who was sprawled across the tile.

“Ah! Oh _my_ , who’s this?” she asked in lieu of a greeting to the apartment’s occupants. The dog sat up, scrabbling a little for purchase on the tile after sliding on its own fur.

“That’s Makkachin!” Yuuri answered, and Sara looked up from offering her hand for the dog to sniff to see him standing at the stove, a patterned dish towel over his shoulder. “Viktor’s had him longer than he’s had me,” he joked.

“Not longer than me, though,” quipped a man Sara didn’t recognize leaning against the bar with a glass of wine. Yuuri spared him an exasperated glance over his shoulder. “Always competing, huh, Chris?”

Uncertainty made Sara overly cautious, but Yuuri was smiling, his gaze sweeping from the man to Sara. His obvious ease was grounding, and Sara found herself smiling back.

“Hello,” she said, pushing her hair back behind her ear and straightening. “Thank you so much for having us.”

“Of course, Sara,” Yuuri said, pulling the dish towel off his shoulder and setting it aside so he could pull Sara into a hug, “Viktor and I are so pleased Mila invited you – and Michele and Emil. It’s been so long.”

Yuuri’s hugs were something magical, that definitely hadn’t changed since high school. Sara felt her shoulders relax even as she stepped back from him. “It really has.”

“Viktor’s around here somewhere, I think he was having Yurio help him out with picking up the patio. That scruffy trollop is Christophe Giacometti, a good friend of ours. Oh, hello, Michele, how are you?”

Michele had appeared at Sara’s side, frowning at Yuuri and standing so close to her that she could just about feel the agitation rolling off his skin. But Giulia Crispino hadn’t raised her children to be ostensibly rude or discourteous, so Michele dipped his head politely and muttered his answer. _Just wait until he meets Viktor_ , Sara thought, _even if he’s a big plant nerd, married, and obviously gay, all Mickey’s gonna see is a gorgeous sex god or something_.

Christophe had migrated from the bar. He was much taller than Sara had realized, seeming even more so from his broad shoulders and the way his wavy, bleached-blond hair was mussed. “I felt rude over there,” he said by way of explanation, not looking away from Sara even though they could both feel Michele’s irritation building. “I’m Chris, like Yuuri said, though I’m not sure I like being called ‘scruffy’,”

A smile was playing at the corners of Sara’s lips at Christophe’s decision to defend his stubble rather than Yuuri calling him a trollop. Sara put her hand out for him to shake. “I’m Sara Crispino. My brother and I went to school with Yuuri, we just moved here by chance.”

“Ah, _enchanté_!” Christophe exclaimed as he took her hand, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. Sara was struck with the notion that Christophe might plant a kiss to the back of her hand. She almost wished he would.

Mila had been hanging back by the door to the stairwell, but now she stepped around Makkachin and Emil, who was still crouched on the floor petting him, to nudge Chris back with her shoulder. Perhaps she could tell that Michele was only barely keeping his composure, and Yuuri was obviously flustered as well. “Can I get you guys something to drink? There’s wine, of course, juice Viktor got from the Peterson’s farm stand, water, probably some tea…”

“The juice is _mine_!” someone shouted, thundering down a staircase in the back corner of the living room. “Baba, you _know_ the juice is mine,”

Mila rolled her eyes at Yuri, who was shoving up the sleeves of his cheetah-print sweater like he was going to vault over the kitchen counter and fight her. “I’m not talking about the CapriSun, _kotonok_.”

Yuri blinked, looking surprised for a moment before he scowled at Mila and said something in Russian. Yuuri shook his head in answer, making Yuri squirm. “You know we discussed this yesterday. And English, remember?”

Yuri rolled his eyes but dutifully schlepped over to greet Emil (who had finally gotten up off the floor, but still had a hand on Makkachin) and Michele (who matched his lack of enthusiasm beautifully). He only narrowed his eyes at Sara and said to Mila in an undertone, “If I knew you were inviting _her_ , I’d have invited Beka,”

Sara didn’t know what to say to that, but Mila shrugged like this was no big deal, like there were no implications there. “You could’ve invited Otabek anyway, you know everyone loves him. Would be even more of a party, too.”

“I sure _do_ love that guy,” Viktor said, coming down the same staircase Yuri had barreled down moments earlier at a much more sedate pace. There was another poodle, this one much smaller with a reddish coat, balanced on his hip. “You know he’s always welcome for dinner, Yurio.”

Yuri grumbled something that sounded half in Russian, and Mila reached out to pinch his arm. “Go help Yuuri, _kotonok_.”

He stuck his tongue out but squeezed past Christophe into the kitchen.

Viktor was smiling widely at the newly arrived guests, moving across the living room like a dancer. When he drew near enough, Sara could see a dusting of iridescent highlighter over his sharp cheekbones and the top of his nose. Michele shot a scowl over his shoulder at Sara instead of introducing himself to Michele. Sara could read his face well enough: he wanted to leave; he didn’t like the amount of men in proximity to his sister. Sara squared her shoulders instead of sticking her tongue out at him and stretched up to kiss Viktor’s cheek in greeting.

“Thanks so much for letting us come,” she said. Emil hovered so close behind her that when she stepped back, she fell against his chest. Instead of steadying her, he reached around to ruffle the small poodle’s ears, echoing Sara’s greeting but directing it to the dog instead. Viktor didn’t seem to mind.

“Yuuri and I were so happy when we moved into this space because of the opportunities we thought it might bring to host guests. It’s a treat to have his old friends here!”

Michele’s glower didn’t falter when Sara turned back to find Mila again. When she passed him, he grabbed at her arm and hissed, “Non mi piace lui.”

“Sono stupito,” she said just as softly, deadpan. “You’re being rude. Can’t you try to be pleasant?”

He only huffed and stalked over to Emil’s side. Sara met Mila’s questioning glance from where she stood by Yuuri and smiled. She wasn’t going to let her grumpy twin ruin the evening.

  
  


☾

  
  


It _was_ a pleasant evening, overall. Michele had, indeed, pouted the entire night, but it hadn’t stopped Emil from quickly endearing himself with Christophe and Mila, or Sara from reconnecting with Yuuri. The sun was out until late in the day, comfortably warm on all their shoulders as they ate dinner on the rooftop patio. From there, Sara could see out over all of the main part of Eidolon, out until the trees swallowed up what she could see of the residential streets. Spending so much of her life in the city meant Sara was no stranger to heights, but sitting on the roof felt entirely different – it was almost like being in a treehouse, the way the forest was just waiting to fall back over the streets. Had some place so green always been so close?

The party was definitely some sort of celebration, but not anyone’s birthday. There were flower crowns for each of them, each with a different assortment of colors and types, the meaning to which was explained by Yuuri at Viktor’s doe-eyed encouragement. Sara didn’t retain all those meanings – the notion that anyone could retain the language of flowers two hundred years after its advent was a marvel – but all the same, she enjoyed the secret meanings to the pretty blooms. Even Michele seemed interested, tracing the petals of his monkshood and mint crown. A nice vintage of wine had been brought up to the patio with the food, and even Yuri was permitted a sip when a toast was given by Viktor with the cry, “to Midsummer!”

There was something ritual and practiced about the dinner without it being overtly so. Viktor and Mila got to singing a soft song in Russian as they lit candles when the sun finally set, Yuri joining in after a verse or two. Christophe kept talking about bonfires and the lack of white dresses, dandelion wine, and something called _nokken_ (that launched a lighthearted argument in French with Viktor). There was a strong sense of familiarity among everyone gathered, almost intimately so. Perhaps that was why the air felt almost heavy with static, brushing along the backs of Sara’s hands and tingling down her spine, even catching her hair and making the ends curl out of their usual pin-straight state. No one mentioned it, and there weren’t any weird shocks when Mila’s fingertips brushed hers while passing a salad dish, either.

Even with the obviously _unique_ vibe of the gathering, Sara didn’t feel all too awkward sitting at the table with them, or joining in the conversation that meandered from Yuri’s dutiful report on off-season hockey plans were going at the community rink and his complaints about the recent Stanley Cup to Chris’ updates on school (he was, Sara learned, a student adviser at the local high school in conjunction with summer social work classes he took at a community college and subsequently had all kinds of gossip).

Yuri and Emil were getting on like a house on fire, discussing what Sara considered to be acts of stupidity but what the boys staunchly insisted were _badass_ athletic feats and aspirations. Yuuri was curious about the remaining years of college Sara had, and when she explained that she would be taking classes at the art academy, he and Viktor gave her the most enthusiastic feedback she’d heard yet. Mila had wound up holding Vicchan on her lap as soon as the table was cleared, and at Sara’s announcement, she held him out so the little poodle could lick Sara’s cheeks.

At some point, Mila’s hand covered Sara’s where it was resting on the table. When Sara met Mila’s eye, Mila grinned and pushed her chair back from the table. “It’s Midsummer. Dance with me?”

Sara didn’t know about dancing without music, especially when the only dancing she could think of in relation to the summer solstice was with a ribbon pole, but it was hard to think of an excuse not to when Mila was standing over, wearing that flower crown from Yuuri and looking as radiant as a muse of Alphonse Mucha’s. Michele put a warning hand on her wrist, and that was the push she needed. She laced her fingers with Mila’s and let herself be pulled to her feet and to the clear floor space by the brick wall around the edge of the rooftop patio.

The ABBA playing downstairs understandably didn’t reach the rooftop, despite the open door, so it was without music that they tried to find rhythm. But somehow, dancing with Mila was more effortless than Sara could’ve imagined. At some point, Viktor and Yuuri joined them, and then Christophe spun her away from Mila, and Yuri and Yuuri ended up dancing. Sara watched Emil coax Michele to stand from the table, but nothing more. Her eye kept finding Mila’s as they spun around with different partners, and Sara couldn’t help but to feel like she was being pulled toward her like a magnet, kept just out of reach.

When they stopped to catch their breath, Sara thought that in spite of everything – being on the roof, the summer breeze – she could hear that the ABBA playing downstairs had cycled through to an upbeat track by the Cure. _Just my imagination_ , she thought to herself, eyes drifting over to catch Mila’s. The corners of her mouth were twitching upward again. _Ha, ha… just like a dream, more like._

When they arrived at the little house that night, Sara couldn’t remember when she had last smiled so much. It was worth it, even with the subsequent week of brooding and lectures on how untrustworthy people were she got from Michele.

  
  


☾

  
  


June ended in the blink of an eye, and before Sara knew it, they were well in to July. Sara had settled into an easy routine: she rose early enough in the morning to hear the first strains of birdsong through the trees, when Emil was returning from his customary run around the neighborhood. She and Michele would sometimes squabble over coffee – they each had a way of making it, and each believed their method to be superior (Emil, if left to his own devices, was likely to simply pour hot water into whatever dregs were left in the french press from the day before).

Slowly but steadily, Emil’s work on the house was transforming it from a sad space into a happy one. Sometimes that meant sitting on the living room floor to eat meals because the table was covered with cabinet doors in need of sanding, or that all the furniture was pushed into the middle of rooms so the walls could be painted or wallpapered. Michele complained the most, but he also spent a fair amount of time sitting wherever Emil was working, writing his observations in a notebook to type nightly into blog posts.

Sara, though, liked to get out. It wasn’t just that the sawdust inevitably made her sneeze, or that the rapping of the hammer broke her concentration. The air was so much cleaner than she was used to, and it was cooler in Eidolon than in Brooklyn. There was so much around her, just begging to be explored and indulged in. And it didn’t hurt knowing that at least once every few days, she would catch some glimpse of Mila.

After Emil helped her get the yellow yard sale bike back in working order, she’d bike around the neighborhood a few times before heading in to town, a backpack full of a sketchbook and a number of tools bumping pleasantly against her back. Her portfolio was fine for the classes she’d be taking at the art school, but she still wanted to bolster it. There was plenty of fodder for her inspiration in town – the visiting families obviously from Albany or Buffalo or the city, the weathered looking locals, the light playing on storefronts and through windows, the stray cat that lived in the alley by one of the book stores. Sometimes she’d brave the crowds of children and treat herself to ice cream at the shop adjacent to Main.

Living between pages in the back of the sketchbook was the flower crown from Midsummer at the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s, carefully separated to fit in two pieces. Sara had gone back by The Victory Garden two days after the party with a thank-you parcel of pastries from the bakery and had taken the opportunity to ask Yuuri to tell her once more the names of the flowers he’d selected for her. He’d beamed, eyes crinkling at the corners behind his glasses. These were lemon geraniums, he said, here are bluebells. The small flowers were violets. He waved away the meaning of flowers to lean into Sara conspiratorially and tell her he thought they’d just make her eyes look lovely. It was easy to be charmed by Yuuri, and Sara was always someone to preen at compliments.

She couldn’t remember if anyone had commented on the bluebells and violets playing up the purplish hue of her eyes that night at the party, though. What came most to mind when Sara reflected on that night was the yellow roses, fern fronds, and acacia of Mila’s flower crown bouncing against her red hair as they danced.

  
  


☾

  
  


In late July, Sara got a part time job at the book store with a cat – Bennet’s Bookstore – sitting behind the register and occasionally stocking shelves. It was owned by a retired English teacher, and predictably had a classroom-like vibe with the decorations and large selection of young adult novels. There was almost always interesting indie music playing, and as long as they weren’t explicit, customers as well as employees were encouraged to curate playlists inspired by their favorite characters and send them in.

Predictably, Michele protested off the bat. Neither of them had had outright jobs in Brooklyn; their parents sent enough allowance for each of them to comfortably cover rent and necessities. Babysitting and giving tennis lessons gave them enough for recreation. Michele argued that there was no need to bother with getting a job, not when the rent Mr. Karpíšek was setting was so much less than their apartment in Brooklyn. He didn’t seem to understand that Sara wanted to work – she wanted to be around people. Emil looked between the arguing twins, biting his tongue. When Michele stomped out of the kitchen to go sit on the back porch, Sara grabbed Emil by the sleeve and tugged until he leaned down to meet her eyes.

“Talk to him. Get him to join the recreation club you’re in. Try and get him to start going to the little catholic church by the art school. He _needs_ to get out of his head.”

Emil seemed conflicted about having to be assertive with Michele, but he finally nodded. “I’ll try him. But I can’t say it will work.”

  
  


☾

  
  


Michele’s mood did improve when he started going to the tennis court at the high school with Emil. It was a relief to Sara. Surely it wasn’t healthy for Michele to worry so much about her. And there wasn’t long before Emil would be returning to Hobart in Geneva. The twins would keep renting the house from Mr. Karpíšek. Sara would attend art school, and Michele – well, Michele was a loose end. He’d decided not to apply at the local community college and flat out refused to leave Sara alone to attend a university elsewhere. In short, he needed a job.

Sara pondered on her brother often while she worked the counter at the small book store. Her boss, Mrs. Nelson, helpfully brought Sara the local newspaper whenever a new one was out, assuring Sara that something would turn up for him. It wasn’t exactly that Sara was concerned about him not having a _job_ ; as he had expressed to her when she got the Bennet’s job, it wasn’t fiscally necessary. It would, however, get Michele off her back after Emil returned to school.

She couldn’t focus on Michele _all_ the time, though. Sara learned through her proximity to The Victory Garden that Mila actually worked there. She caught herself at all hours thinking about the redhead, wondering what she was doing and if perhaps there would be a reason for her to come by Bennet’s. And it wasn’t as if she couldn’t simply reach out to her; they’d exchanged numbers at the Midsummer party. Sara had a habit of psyching herself out, though, every time she thought of texting Mila out of the blue. It wasn’t that they didn’t talk at all, though. When Sara met her coworker at Bennet’s for the first time, she’d sent a text to both Mila and Yuuri to confirm that it was, indeed, _the_ Otabek Altin that Yuri had prattled on about over dinner on Midsummer.

With Bennet’s being her first real job, there was a degree of novelty in the beginning for Sara. It was almost exciting to bike into town in the early morning, the air still pleasantly cool from the absence of the sun, her backpack thumping out a rhythm on her back. Almost always Sara shared her shift with Otabek. He was newly graduated from high school, ready to head off to NYU in the fall. They shared easy conversation, usually somewhat teasing on both ends (Sara hadn’t realized Neutral Milk Hotel was even a real band until Otabek showed up wearing one of their shirts and subsequently made her sit through as much of _On Avery Island_ as he could. But he also thought a macchiato was something invented by Starbucks).

There were plenty of days, too, spent with Yuri Plisetsky dodging work at the bakery (that Sara now knew Nikolai, Yuri and Viktor’s grandfather, owned) and hanging around the shop. Yuri usually found some place to sprawl by the counter, complaining about Viktor, recounting something his cat had gotten up to the night before, or bemoaning the approaching end of summer. He wanted Sara to play Radiohead or Bright Eyes in the shop and pouted churlishly whenever Sara told him no. She thought she knew his motives, though, especially considering she was pretty certain that his favorite ‘genre’ was Warped Tour era emo.

And even though Sara barely knew the kid, there was an easy familiarity in his actions and the stories he told. She couldn’t help but feel that with moving to Eidolon, she’d gained a small pack of brothers.

  
  


☾

  
  


The bell over the door rang just as Sara got settled on the stool behind the register. It wasn’t a real bell like at the Victory Garden, but an electronic chime. She glanced up, halfway annoyed at having to deal with a customer so early in her shift, when not even the first song on the store playlist was more than a few notes in. But it was _Mila_ looking right at her, striding toward the counter like she was on a mission. There was a coffee cup in each hand. It took a moment for Sara to get her voice working.

“Hi, good morning, Mila,”

Mila smiled, her face softening dramatically from the cool mask she’d walked in with. “Morning, Sara. Long time no see.”

Sara giggled, absently playing with the midi rings above her knuckles. “Mila, I saw you last Thursday at Peterson’s farm stand. You were complaining about the price of corn.”

Mila shrugged, setting the coffees down on the counter. “Eh. Feels like a long time. I brought you coffee; Yura mentioned that Otabek was gonna be visiting family in Kazakhstan this week and I figured you’d have ended up with his opening shifts.”

Sara blinked, her cheeks warming. _I can’t believe she thought about me. I can’t believe she brought me coffee, oh my god._ “Oh my god. Mila, thank you so much. I’m so touched, I don’t even know -”

“This one’s black and this one’s a double-double. I didn’t know what you’d want...” Mila shifted her weight from foot to foot, and if Sara didn’t think Mila was far above it, she’d say she was nervous.

“Oh, the black sounds good to me.”

“Really? _You_ , Miss Princess-Sundresses-And-Pretty-Little-Rings, like black coffee?”

Sara was giggling again like an idiot. She felt like a young teenager, flirting like this. “I’m _Italian_ , silly, I was practically raised without sugar in my coffees… or macchiatos or cappuccinos… but you, _you_ drink black coffee?”

Mila snorted, sending a loose curl flying away from her face. “ _Bozhe_ , no. Yuck!”

“Mila! Aren’t you a...” Sara wrinkled her nose and gestured to the holey Black Flag shirt Mila had under an open and equally ratty flannel, “...punk or something? _Hardcore_?”

Mila set the double-double down, laughing out loud. “ _Sara_! I like my coffee light and sweet, no matter how political my music is. Silly girl. And look, you see the holes in this? It’s not punk, it’s air conditioner. Hot outside, no?”

Part of Sara wanted to be self-conscious. She felt like she should be doubting herself, the way Mila always struck her as such a mysterious individual. But Mila was giggling at her own joke and looking at Sara through her eyelashes in a way that made Sara’s heart race, and it was so easy to lean over the counter, prop her head on her hand, and laugh along with her.

When she sobered a little, Mila raised a questioning eyebrow at Sara. “So… you’re not going to make fun of me for putting more sugar in my coffee are you?”

Sara had a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips. “No?”

Mila muttered something relieved-sounding in Russian and wriggled a little as she pulled far more sugar packets and single creamers out of her pocket than looked like should fit, dumping them onto the counter. Sara promptly dissolved once more into laughter.

  
  


☾

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Emil's never met a dog he didn't get along swimmingly with. If you got the references to Ivan Kupala day during discussion at the Solstice, kudos to you! And no, nokken don't have anything to do with the Solstice, but I do love their mythology and have a habit of trying to work it into places.  
> Michele won't always be this much of a grumpy stick in the mud, but there's a little ways to go before he gets better. 
> 
> What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments or on my tumblr @peachy-chulanont :)


	3. Room On Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer becomes fall, and school enters the picture. Michele's grumpiness has yet to improve, and Sara feels trapped by it. Meanwhile, Mila thinks of a solution for Sara's art block.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little bit of angst this chapter! But super light, and Makka and Vicchan have loads of kisses to help fix it.

Emil left Eidolon at the end of August. The work on the little house was just about done, and Emil had to be back upstate in Geneva to move into the Hobart dorms for his junior year. He had lacrosse practice to make and classes to prepare for. Even so, he stayed until the last minute, opening the cabinets and seeing that the hinges didn’t squeak, checking that none of the faucets dripped. Michele pretended he wasn’t reeling when the day finally came that Emil had to go, but Sara knew the truth. Emil did, too.

Mila and Sara had broached whatever awkwardness that made texting hard; they spoke all the time now, even into the wee hours of the morning. It was Mila who told Sara that Yuri had convinced Nikolai to put together a box of pirozkhi for Emil to take along to school. It was expected that Sara would go in to collect them on her way back home after a day spent at Bennet’s. Nikolai, thankfully, was kind and didn’t at all seem to mind the order from his grandson – he waved away the money Sara offered and sent her on her way. When Sara was securing the box of pastries in the basket on the front of her bike, someone called her name. It was Yuuri, coming down the street at a half-jog like he was afraid he’d miss her. When he got to her, Yuuri pressed a packet of herbs into her hand.

“For Emil,” he explained, “Just to put in tea or whatever he drinks – they’re, ah, _rumored_ to help with vitality, stamina, and concentration. Each labeled, see, with directions. I know he doesn’t need any help, of course, I just thought...”

“Yuuri,” Sara cut him off, squeezing his shoulder, “You’re so thoughtful to think of him, I know he’ll love this. He’ll be thrilled.”

And he was.

At the end of the week, when they all knew Emil was settled at Hobart, Michele swallowed his pride and borrowed Sara’s bike to travel to the high school and sign up for driving lessons offered there. The Hobart sweatshirt he’d taken from Emil clashed awfully with Sara’s yellow bike, but she didn’t dare say anything about it. Anyway, she had her own classes to prepare for.

  
  


☾

  
  


It took some time to adjust to Emil not being in the small house. In his absence, Sara noticed she and Michele spoke less, and the floorboards in the hall creaked an awful lot, and there were drafts by the windows, and the competition of who could make coffee first wasn’t much fun anymore. Of course, Sara and Michele had lived alone together for years. Emil’s absence should’ve marked a return to normalcy, but it just brought something as foreign as Eidolon had once been.

Summer was ending. Birds were starting to fly south, the family of deer in the thicket behind the house were harder to catch glimpses of, and when Sara biked to Bennet’s in the morning she had to wear a sweater. Otabek was off to Greenwich Village and NYU, so Sara had the opening shifts more often than not. She let Yuri silently mope around the store under the guise of doing his summer homework for as long as she could. It was more or less the same at home with Michele missing Emil.

Mila would sweep into the bookstore at least once a week to lean on the counter and ask Sara about the customers of the day or to find Yuri and tie his hair into knots under the guise of braiding it. Sara didn’t think she’d ever met anyone quite like Mila. And it was silly, to want so badly to endear herself to someone she’d only recently met – but Sara wanted to be in her presence, she wanted to be in Mila’s light. The redhead had such an air of magnetism about her, pulling Sara’s attention to every gesture of her hands, quirk of her eyebrows, and bounce of her wavy bob. She reasoned that it was Mila’s confidence, the way she carried herself so upright and open, or the way she always had something fascinating to say. Never before had Sara felt so drab in comparison – and never had she felt so at peace with that notion.

After Labor Day, classes at the art school began in earnest, and Sara had something new to focus on. Sara liked her classes. Her first two years at Brooklyn College had been centered around getting required credits out of the way; junior year had been when she finally got to the bulk of her major classes. She hadn’t started out wanted to be an illustration major. Originally, the plan had been to segue into larger communications fields with a simple bachelor’s in fine arts. But along the way, Sara had fallen in love with drawing and creating much more than she’d realized. Now, at the art school outside of Eidolon, she was completely immersed in it. It was like finding home.

It had never been very hard for Sara to make friends, and she got along well with her small studio classes. They were all of different backgrounds – some people in her classes weren’t pursuing degrees, just in the mix from taking a certain number of introductory classes offered by the school. On days Sara didn’t have studio classes, she attended lectures, and she sat with her studio classmates. It was exciting, having a little clique of illustrators to seek out around campus.

And while she was enjoying herself immensely, there was a lot of work for her to do. In addition to studio pieces, the instructors wanted students to keep art journals to show progressions of technique and comprehensive style. Sara had been doing that, more or less, all summer – but instead of being content continuing, she felt like she was at a wall.

This much she expressed the weekend after her birthday at the Katsuki-Nikiforov residence. The gang from Midsummer had gathered, minus Emil, to celebrate. Even Michele came along, scowling all the while. It was hard to resist the promise of a cake baked by Nikolai Plisetsky.

They were all sprawled around the Katsuki-Nikiforov living room, plates of cake in hand. Nikolai had sent Yuri from the bakery with not one but two cakes – an amaretto cream cake and a smaller red velvet cake. Predictably, Michele had used that in deciding not to be so abrasive towards Yuri and Viktor, though it was clear that he still felt Chris was on thin ice even sharing space with Sara. It helped, though, that Michele saw Chris almost daily at the high school, where he had ended up with a job directing after-school sports clubs. Sara was the only one of the bunch who spent their days outside of Eidolon, and Yuuri and Viktor were keen to know how art school was going.

“I’ve always loved art,” Viktor explained, sounding almost shy. “If I hadn’t been so drawn to botany, I probably would’ve pursued it.”

“Then we’d be sitting in an apartment surrounded by your dopey acrylic paintings of oddly colored flowers,” Yuri snapped, wrinkling his nose at his cousin.

Viktor only shrugged and looked down at Yuuri. “ _My_ Yuuri likes my art. Right, darling?”

“Yes, of course, Vitya. Now, Sara, what were you saying about your sketchbook?”

Sara glanced between where Yuuri sat in the armchair and Viktor sat half-perched on the arm and half in his husband’s lap. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just feel like I’ve already drawn so much of the town, and I don’t mind that, but I wish there was more diversity to fill the pages with.”

Yuuri gave her a sympathetic smile. “Makes you miss the city, huh?”

Michele opened his mouth like he might suggest they return to Brooklyn, so Sara hastily said, “Oh, sometimes. But it’s not like we left somewhere as wild Manhattan – it was just, you know, Brooklyn. And I love it so much here. I don’t want to move back. Not yet.”

“Have you thought about drawing the same things in different styles?” Chris asked from his place by the big bookshelves. He had one hand against Makkachin’s chest, holding the dog back from licking frosting off his stubble. Yuri was silently documenting it on his Instagram.

“I have, actually,” Sara said, trying not to laugh at Makkachin’s expense. It wasn’t his fault that Chris was unapologetically a cat person. “And I think I will, at some point, do that for fun rather than homework. I just want to introduce something new to what’s already there, I guess.”

Mila was sitting on the floor in front of where Sara sat on the couch; now, she leaned her head back against Sara’s knee to look at her upside-down. “How many times did you draw that Midsummer crown?”

Sara flushed, hoping that between her skin tone and the low light of the room it wouldn’t be too apparent. She’d shown Mila her sketchbook one of the mornings she’d brought coffee to Bennet’s. She remembered the morning vividly – Mila had asked if Sara drew people, seeing almost none in the sketchbook, and Sara’s thoughts had gone immediately to the idea of drawing _Mila_.

In answer to Mila’s question, though, Sara said, “I only drew it while it was fresh because I pressed it right after.”

“You liked it, though?” Mila had her face pressed against Sara’s leg, smushing her cheek and making the corner of her eye crinkle.

“I _loved_ it,” Sara said, pulling her gaze away from Mila to look over at Yuuri. It was _his_ craftsmanship, after all.

“Well, what if you started coming in to the Victory Garden and drawing the plants there? There’s the seedlings inside and the whole nursery out back, I’m sure there’s enough that you wouldn’t run out.”

“Oh, Mila, you’re a genius!” Sara crowed, cupping Mila’s cheek and dropping a kiss to her forehead. It felt like inspiration was surging through her body – she couldn’t wait to draw. As long as… “Yuuri? Viktor? Is that something I can do?”

“Of course, Sara.”

“We’d be delighted!”

It was such a simple solution, and even Michele couldn’t find anything to complain about. He was looking between the Katsuki-Nikiforovs and the couch where Sara and Mila were. Meeting his sister’s eyes, he gave a grudging shrug. “Che funzioni.”

It was enough. Sara’s cheeks were sore, she was grinning so hard.

  
  


☾

  
  


Mila lived above the bakery Nikolai owned. Sara learned this biking home from class in October, when early snow flurries started coming down. She’d slowed down coming down Main Street to pull her scarf more snug and then stopped altogether because the idea of a warm croissant was too appealing to pass up. That’s when Mila appeared from the alley by the bakery.

“Sara! What are you doing out?”

“Mila? I’m coming home from class. What are _you_ doing here, don’t you have work?”

“Reduced hours in the fall and winter,” Mila said, as if this was common knowledge. “I saw you from my window. Are you really biking home in the snow?”

Sara smiled at Mila from behind her layers. “It’s only flurries.”

“ _Only flurries,_ ” Mila repeated under her breath, crossing the sidewalk to extend a hand to Sara. “Come on, let’s get you something warm to drink and I’ll drive you home.”

“Inside where? And you – _you_ drive?”

Mila wrinkled her nose. “My apartment is above the bakery. And I know they say ‘gays can’t drive’, but that only applies to _city_ gays. I’m Siberian. And when you’re bisexual, you can choose driving or math.”

Sara meant to roll her eyes in exasperation but ended up laughing for real as she swung off her bike. “Who comes up with this stuff?”

Mila only shrugged, reaching out to steady the handlebars. “It’s just how it is, my friend.”

They stowed the bicycle against the building and Mila showed Sara up the back stars. She explained that while Nikolai leased the building for the bakery, he had a house near the high school where he’d raised Yuri. It had been a blessing, almost, for Mila to come along and rent the long-empty apartment upstairs. Mila had a way of explaining things and turning them into big stories; Sara was biting her lip against a grin by the time Mila was opening the door.

The short hallway inside opened on the right into a wide, arched doorway – the kitchen. Ahead and to the left, the hall went into the living room. Herbs had been hung up to dry over the kitchen doorway, and when Sara turned to look at the front door she’d just stepped through, there were herbs there, too. Mila either didn’t notice Sara looking around or didn’t care, breezing into her apartment and pulling off her own scarf, throwing it onto the back of the sofa.

“Just get comfy, we’ll get you warmed up in no time. Cocoa okay?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes,” Sara said, slowly untangling herself from her jacket. Really, it wasn’t terribly cold, and she probably could’ve easily biked home with the snow flurries, but if Mila really wanted to take care of her, Sara would let her. Mila disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Sara alone in the living room.

Mila’s mark on the place was clear. There were blankets folded over the back of the old looking sofa and armchair, and there were books stacked on the coffee table. Where the Katsuki-Nikiforov apartment was awash in plants and green wallpaper, Mila’s was cozy from all the soft textiles and the art on the walls. There was even a large, tasteful poster of Nick Cave in a modern black frame. Because of the proximity to other commercial buildings, there weren’t many windows – only on the back wall by the door. The walls, where you could see them, were painted a warm ochre, offset by the baseboards and hardwood. The living room was longer than it was wide, turning into a dining nook in the back around the corner of what must be the kitchen.

All the buildings in Eidolon were old – be it the occasional colonial or more common turn of the century – and this was no exception. Was the antique-looking furniture something that had been left behind by an old occupant, or scavenged from yard sales? Still, the room didn’t seem like it had been cobbled together haphazardly.

“Sara?” Mila had come back into the living room, a steaming mug in hand. Sara jumped at Mila’s sudden appearance, and Mila gave her that grin that showed her canines. Under her open flannel she was wearing a shirt that read _Meet Me In The Hallway_ across the chest. It made Sara feel a kind of wistful she couldn’t place.

“I guess you’ve never been here – which is crazy, ‘cause I’ve always been right here. But anyway, welcome.”

Sara took the mug from Mila and dragged her eyes away to look around the room. “I really like it.”

Mila smiled in return, dropping to sit in the squashy armchair. She nodded her head toward the two walls almost completely covered in frames. “Thank you, Sara. I try to scavenge art wherever I can find it. Maybe one day I’ll have a _Sara Crispino original_ for my wall.”

“Maybe you will.”

“But don’t give me false hope,” Mila said in a jokingly serious tone. “I’d give you the grand tour, but Michele would probably have my head, huh, if I keep you away much longer?”

Sara twisted her lips and sighed. Michele was grumpy lately, too quick to get on Sara’s case than felt fair. “Probably.”

Mila took Sara home in her creaky old Buick, the bike shoved precariously into the trunk and kept there with a fierce whispered threat from Sara that seemed to somehow work. There was a Strokes CD playing the whole time, providing a swelling, familiar soundtrack to the setting sun and the autumn streets. Sara found herself itching to hold Mila’s hand. Instead, she gripped the mug of hot chocolate tighter.

  
  


☾

  
  


Mila got the mug back the next week when Sara showed up to the Victory Garden with her sketchbook. Sara presented it, full with an order of hot chocolate from the coffee shop, with a cavalier air. The way Mila’s face lit up made up for how tedious it had been to carry the open mug from the coffee shop to the Victory Garden without spilling too much.

Even though fall was definitely underway throughout Eidolon, all of the plants in the nursery were flourishing under Yuuri and Viktor’s care. At least once a day, townspeople concerned about their plants at home came in and asked for help. It was always interesting to watch: Viktor didn’t question his own knowledge and ate up the attention lauded on him by whatever housewife was worried about her houseplant. Yuuri, on the other hand, was always cautious, always quick to refer to the many books around the shop. He still had a knack of endearing himself with everyone who walked through the door, putting them right at ease and straightening out their problems with care. The Victory Garden didn’t advertise house calls for plants, but Yuuri and Viktor wound up going out to assess situations in person anyway, more often than not. Mila always stayed behind.

In the cooler months, the poodles were let into the shop during the day. Makkachin usually kept a post under the tables in the front of the shop where he could keep an eye on all the activity; Vicchan had a favorite chair in the transitional part of the building by the proper nursery. It was usually Vicchan who ended up with Sara, who contorted in the chair with her sketchbook balanced on her knees and her pens scattered over a table she shared with a ficus. The poodles were a fun subject to draw, with their curls and expressive faces. Sara was playing with her own style, making caricatures of the dogs more often than not as the days went on.

The light through the paneled glass was always greenish and finicky to capture when Sara broke out her prismas and inks, and if she ever got frustrated with shading or value of larger subjects, she’d simply turn to the fine details of the plants around her. Everywhere, there was something to give and give to her art. Mila’s suggestion for Sara to draw at the Victory Garden had been something like a godsend.

Mila was almost always there when Sara was. She swept the floors, watered the plants, took inventory – hovering like a constant in Sara’s vicinity, sweetening the deal even more. With the cooler weather, she’d started layering flannels over her customary worn band shirts (for punk bands that she liked to draw Sara’s attention to and wink). This week the button-ups had been worn under varying grandfather sweaters.

When Yuuri or Viktor would leave her in charge of the shop, Mila’d scamper behind the counter and put on some old American punk song, just to make Sara roll her eyes. Usually it was a playlist of combined orchestral, operatic, and dated pop songs coming through the stereo. Either Viktor or Yuuri had a liking for Belle & Sebastian and Depeche Mode. Sometimes, though, Mila would inexplicably get a newer indie track to come on, and she’d dance around with the broom until she coaxed Sara into dancing with her.

Mila’s hair had a way of working itself out of its fastenings, and when they spun around each other between the plants, it would flare around her face like a halo of flames. There was usually dirt on Mila’s apron or her hands, and there was usually graphite and ink on Sara’s. Sara didn’t think she’d mind if that dirt got under her collar, traced through her hair. Would Mila mind a smudge of charcoal on her cheek?

It was on the tip of Sara’s tongue, but she didn’t know how to say it. _I think you’re my best friend._

  
  


☾

  
  


It always struck Sara as funny that Yuuri’s old poodle was called ‘Vicchan’, a diminutive of ‘Viktor’.

“It’s like predestination, you know?” she said, pausing by the door. Michele was idling by the curb in the car he rented now; with the days growing shorter and colder, either he or Mila had started to take Sara home from town. He’d tell her off if she lingered too long in the store.

“It really is!” Viktor practically crowed from his perch on a step ladder where he was pruning the hanging plants over the counter, a wide smile taking his whole face.

Yuuri’s cheeks flushed and he gave Viktor a look of fond exasperation. “Darling, you know it’s just a coincidence.”

Viktor dipped gracefully to press a smacking kiss to Yuuri’s forehead, making him turn a darker shade of pink. “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he amended, though he shot a look over Yuuri’s head and across the room where Mila was checking on the succulents that clearly said he still thought there was something more than coincidence at play.

Mila winked at Viktor conspiratorially before turning to Sara with a shrug. “Life is strange.”

Sara could’ve just waved goodbye and walked out the door, but she hesitated. Wanted to make the statement into something, wanted to draw out the afternoon that had been so tranquil, so comfortable. Mila was wearing a big chunky knit sweater, and she had managed to play the Strokes’ 2003 album _Room On Fire_ in celebration of it’s birthday.

So Sara turned back over her shoulder, a hand on the doorjamb, and said, “There’s a film. _Life Is Beautiful._ ”

It didn’t matter if Mila or Viktor or Yuuri or all of them thought Sara was mad. It was one of Sara’s favorite movies, and it was something she felt like she was offering. Sure, it was a tidbit of information friends would share, but what if it could be more? Perhaps they could watch it together, curled on the sofa in Mila’s ochre living room. Sara felt warm, like she was inching forward in a game she hadn’t played since high school. Would Mila inch forward, too?

  
  


☾

Mila had crafted a wild Halloween playlist for Sara to play at Bennett’s on her shifts. Yuri somehow worked on even more tracks on one of his many visits to the store.

“You don’t think I’m going to get in trouble for this stuff?” Sara asked over her shoulder as she checked inventory. She couldn’t place what the exact song was, but she’d already sat through three by the Misfits.

Mila was leaning on her elbows on one of the lower shelves, dangerously close to knocking over the display there. Knowing her, she probably would at some point. Sara couldn’t find it in her to be irritated about it, even preemptively.

“First of all,” Mila said, knitting her fingers together like a professor getting ready to settle into a lecture, “If someone complains to Mrs. Nelson, direct them to me and I’ll take care of them. Second, these are hand-picked classics. Are you questioning my taste? Sara, you wound me.”

Sara snickered into the hand she’d covered her face with when Mila had really got going. “Mila, you’re going to make me lose my job.”

“Never ever,” Mila countered, leaning even more on the shelf. The display looked especially precarious. “I’m just being neighborly. Here, if I buy one of those little bat things, can I ask you what you’re dressing up as?”

As Mila reached for the fabric bookmarks with little plush bats on the end, she sent the display of books careening off the shelf. The look on her face was so ridiculous that Sara started laughing, and she laughed and laughed until she cried.

  
  


☾

  
  


Mila frowned the moment Sara came in. Sara thought she might’ve imagined it, but no, that was a real frown – it even had Mila’s eyes narrowed into slits. Sara ducked her head and made to breeze past the display where Mila was rearranging the newest cuttings of kalanchoes (which were thriving despite the nippy weather). Instead, Mila shot an arm out to catch Sara’s wrist, and Sara stopped without even thinking of pulling away.

“What’s wrong?”

Sara avoided catching Mila’s gaze, instead directing her attention to the floor of the shop (greenish white linoleum that probably drove Viktor mad, but stood up well enough to the endless dusting of potting soil). “It’s nothing,”

Mila sighed and Sara knew that if she looked up, she’d catch an eye-roll. But it wasn’t exasperation Mila was projecting, but concern. She loosened her grip on Sara’s wrist to slide down and slip her hand into Sara’s. Sara finally looked up at that, tears threatening to bubble up at the contrast between Mila’s comforting closeness and the still-fresh replay of her most recent fight with Michele playing in her head. Mila gave Sara’s hand a squeeze before turning over her shoulder and waving to catch Yuuri’s eye from where he was perched behind the counter, account books open in front of him. Yuuri looked up almost the moment Mila turned to him, a politely concerned look on his face. Maybe he thought she was stressed about midterms.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yuuri,” Mila began, and Sara had a flash of the kind of story Mila might spin in order to protect Sara’s privacy. She allowed herself a short sigh and forced a small smile and returned the squeeze Mila had given her. For a moment, she considered lying – but they deserved the truth. _I’ll get through this without crying_ , she told herself.

“I’m alright, Yuuri, Mila. I just –” and here it was, her voice was already cracking, “had another argument with Mickey. It’s fine, really. I was just going to, um, sit and draw a little, if I could. It’s fine,”

Mila made a soft sound of sympathy, but didn’t hang on when Sara slipped her hand away to run her index fingers under her eyes in an effort to save her eye makeup. No one mentioned that Sara hadn’t even brought along her art supplies.

Yuuri was rising from his stool and closing the account books, making his way around the counter to stand in front of the women. His polite smile had turned sympathetic, and he reached out to her. “I’m _sure_ it’s fine, Sara, but can I still make you a cup of tea?”

Sara bit her lip even after she’d folded herself into Yuuri’s embrace. “I don’t want to impose – and you guys are in the middle of work, I shouldn’t have come in like this.”

“Nonsense, Sara, we’re your friends,” she felt Yuuri turn his head, and she was sure he was having some sort of silent conversation with Mila. It was hard to be annoyed, though – Yuuri always gave fantastic hugs.

“If it’s okay, how about I take you to get that cup of tea, Sara?” Mila asked. Sara released Yuuri to turn back to Mila, who was already reaching to untie her apron. “Just upstairs to the kitchen, if that’s okay. I know where the tea is, and it’s almost time for my break, anyway.”

Sara was worrying her lip again, but Yuuri nodded reassuringly. “Go on, Sara. The dogs didn’t come down with us this morning, so they’re there. Viktor’s out back with the saplings, so you won’t have any interruptions – unless you need either of us, of course. There’s some new tea we picked up at the market, too, if you want to try that.”

There were tears threatening to spill again, faced with the kindness of her friends, but Sara managed to nod. Mila put a hand on her back to guide her through the store, a comforting presence at her back. The music that always played was louder passing the counter and going through the hall. It was Belle & Sebastian. _If I could have a second skin, I’d probably dress up in you.._. The store was a such a comfortable space for Sara these days; her breath seemed to come back easier just following Mila to the stairs. She knew this place, she knew these people. Though she visited the Victory Garden often, Sara had only been up to the apartment for Midsummer and for the small birthday gathering the Katsuki-Nikiforovs had hosted.

It was different today, with the midday light and the absence of guests filling the space.

Mila didn’t take her hand off of Sara’s back until they were inside the kitchen. Sara had to be more upset than she realized, making the loss of contact feel sharp. _Am I touch starved or just sad?_ Thankfully, though, Makkachin and Vicchan came barreling over to claim her focus, wagging their tails so forcefully that their bodies wiggled. Vicchan promptly put his paws up for Sara to scoop him up and she did just that, cradling the small dog to her chest even as she sank to the floor next to Makkachin.

“There’s the cavalry, huh?” Mila chuckled as she moved around the kitchen, taking mugs down from the cabinet and turning the burner on to heat the kettle. “They’re such sweeties.”

Sara was going to try to formulate a proper response, but Makkachin, perhaps feeling left out by the attention Vicchan was getting, started licking her face and that response quickly turned into babbling in Italian. Mila leaned against the kitchen counter and watched, a soft smile on her face. Sara felt some of the tension leave her body, surrounded by the needy poodles.

It didn’t seem to take very long at all for the kettle to whistle. Both Makkachin and Vicchan barked along with it, just in case Mila might’ve missed it. Sara took it as her cue to climb back to her feet, setting Vicchan back down on the ground. The mugs Mila had taken from the cabinet were mismatched, but perfectly so – one was a red with the Cornell crest, the other had rainbow bubble text that read ‘gay juice’. It was fairly easy to tell which belonged to Yuuri and which belonged to Viktor. Sara came around to stand next to Mila as she measured tea from an old Cadbury Chocolate tin into two mesh infusers.

“Which do you want, Big Red or big homo?” Mila joked, stepping back from the counter so Sara could move in closer. Sara tried to laugh like she meant it, but even she could tell that her attempt fell short. Immediately, Mila started backtracking. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that,”

“No, no, it’s no worries, I _am_ a big homo,” Sara said, grabbing the handle of Viktor’s _gay juice_ mug and resting her other hand on Mila’s arm. She felt sheepish; delicate. “I just… that’s basically what I was arguing with Michele about. I’m sure you guessed as much.”

Mila bit her lip and nodded. She picked up the Cornell mug and tilted her head toward the living room. “Wanna sit?”

Sara followed Mila to Yuuri and Viktor’s neat living room, the dogs on their heels. The whole apartment was furnished with a combination of antique furniture and more modern pieces, tied together with plants and paintings and heavy throws. The couch was long and low, too emerald to be a true olive green, goose-feather stuffed Edwardian, and embroidered with cicadas. Mila pulled a needle-pointed throw pillow off the couch and sat on the floor by the coffee table, so Sara followed suit. Makkachin quickly laid down in the space between the women, his head resting on Mila’s crossed legs and his tail wagging idly against Sara’s knee. Vicchan climbed back into Sara’s lap, and she couldn’t help but feel a rush of pride at being chosen by the small dog. She remembered from high school that Yuuri had an anxiety disorder, and she imagined – or hoped, maybe – that having a companion animal as sweet as Vicchan helped.

Mila sipped on her tea and rubbed Makkachin’s ears, apparently waiting on Sara to speak. And as much as Sara wanted to pretend she hadn’t quarreled with Michele to instead focus on sharing tea with a pretty girl, she knew she needed to talk about what had happened.

“So,” Sara began, tracing the lip of the mug with her fingertip like one might a wine glass, “it’s probably not a big deal. I mean, I know it isn’t. I just get upset, you know? Because I love Mickey and he’s a... fucking idiot sometimes.”

“Wow, you swore,” Mila said with a startled chuckle. It didn’t reach her eyes.

Sara sighed. “It felt right. He’s being stupid.”

“No arguments there,” Mila reassured her, taking a long sip of tea. The Cornell red clashed with her auburn hair almost laughably, but Sara couldn’t bring herself to find the mirth to comment on it. Mila was quite obviously waiting for Sara to continue, leaving the door open and letting Sara come through on her own terms. And Sara couldn’t dawdle any longer. She didn’t _want_ to.

“You know we’ve been having arguments lately, right?”

“More than usual?” Mila sounded like she was simply seeking confirmation. Sara nodded, and Mila said, “Yes, I thought so.”

“It’s probably just stress, you know. He’s enjoying this freelance thing, but there’s a lot of pressure to do well. And that’s fine, you know, I get that. But especially with Emil back at school, Michele doesn’t have any way to decompress. He doesn’t see me as someone to confide in right now so much as a damsel that he alone can save from distress.”

Mila twisted her lips like she’d caught a whiff of something rotten. “I thought he’d gotten away from being so overbearing after you guys moved here,”

“I thought so, but he’s worse than ever now,” Sara said, looking down at Vicchan in her lap. The red poodle was cleaning his paws and missing a little, getting her leg in the process. She didn’t have the heart to redirect him, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away from him.

“ _Sara_ ,” Mila said, nearly a whisper. Imploring. When Sara didn’t raise her head, Mila reached over Makkachin to close the distance between them and catch the curtain of Sara’s hair and push it back, tucking it behind Sara’s ear. Sara looked up then, knowing she wouldn’t be able to hide the tears in her eyes any longer.

“Sara, what happened?”

Sara sighed. “I was talking about going out with some friends from class this weekend. I don’t have work, you know, with hours being reduced for the fall. There’s a girl in one of my classes, Isabella, and she invited me to come watch her boyfriend’s hockey game. Some local thing at the community rink,”

Mila nodded. “I know them. JJ’s a lot to handle sometimes – Yurio can’t stand him – but JJ and Bella are really nice people.”

“Right, that’s what I was saying to Michele when he inevitably got upset. He was… I don’t know, he gets belligerent, kinda. Heard ‘hockey’ and all he could think was of a bunch of men. Never mind that I probably wouldn’t be interacting with any of the players except JJ, and I would be with Isabella, not alone.”

“And?” Mila prodded.

Sara bit her lip and looked back down at Vicchan. “Mickey said he forbade me from going.”

“He… _forbade_ you?”

Maybe it was the edge Mila’s voice had taken, but the hairs on Sara’s arm stood up. She rubbed them down, fighting off a shiver. “He said I _absolutely_ wasn’t allowed. That it was dangerous, that men are ruthless and will stop at nothing to prey on women and endanger their livelihood. He said if he wasn’t there – which he wouldn’t be, he has a deadline – then I couldn’t go.” Sara looked back to Mila, whose face was once again contorted.

“Wow, he, uh, really gets his ideas right from caricatures of paranoid moms and the Knights Templar.”

Sara snorted. “Something like that. God, he’s been obsessed with the idea that I’m going to get myself into a sticky situation with a man since we were little. And it’s true, I used to be picked on a lot, and there were several boys who have harassed me over the years and he’s protected me. But I’d thought that he’d grow out of it as we got older, just like most people outgrow playground teasing. I know there are bad people out there and it’s true women are harassed by men all the time, but I can take care of myself in regular social situations. But here we are, now twenty-two and he’s still _obsessed_ with keeping me safe.”

Mila had a small frown. “He wants to protect you so badly from interacting men, he’s terrified of you dating, but doesn’t he know…?”

“Doesn’t he know that I’m a lesbian?” Sara finished for her, raising an eyebrow. “He bloody well should, because I’ve got to have told him a hundred times! But he doesn’t listen. He _never_ listens, Mila.”

“I’m guessing you tried to tell him again today?”

“Yeah,” Sara said, reaching for her mug and draining it before continuing. “I told him that first of all, he had no claim over my own autonomy. That I was telling him about the hockey game because I want him to know what I’m doing, not because I need his permission. We’re _adults_ and moreover, his ideas on chivalry and virtue are _stupid_ and _outdated_.”

Sara knew her voice was raising by the way Makkachin blinked his eyes open and raised his head to look around at her. “And I told him all he was doing when he pushed every man away from me was keeping me from friends. I told him I have no interest in dating men and they’re _not_ all making moves on me, they’re being _polite_.”

“I take it that it didn’t quite sink in?”

“Not exactly. He started praising me, telling me ‘good, you shouldn’t want to date men, men are pigs’. Which is, well, not exactly _correct,_ but a sentiment I can get behind,” Sara joked weakly. Mila giggled, and it was a gentle push to continue. “So I said to him that he’s deluded. No matter who I date or even talk to, it’s not for him to say or try and control. And he started getting upset again, saying that I can’t know what’s the safest, best choice to make because _I’m_ always deluded by seeing the good in people.”

Mila frowned. “What a shitty thing to say to you, Sara. I guess he meant well, but really – I’m sorry he said that,”

Sara grabbed Mila’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “Thank you, Mila. That was really the most of our argument.”

Mila squeezed Sara’s hand back, but she still looked irritated. “Ugh, I wouldn’t put it past him to say something stupid like ‘how do you know if you’re a lesbian if you’ve never been with a man?’. People like that rub me the wrong way.”

Sara giggled. “If he said that he’d only have himself to blame. God, he’d probably think the best life for me would be to sit on a pedestal and gather dust. Anyway, he’s a virgin, so who’s he to say about needing to try things before saying what you like?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Mila laughed, taking her hand back from Sara to squeeze the bridge of her nose. “Poor Michele. He really needs to stop projecting, huh?”

“To be fair,” Sara said, sobering a little, “for as religious he still is – we were raised Catholic like good little Italians – he has no qualms with LGBT folk. That’s never been one of the things we argue about. Of course, his understanding that _I’m_ an LGBT folk – and that he is too, for all I know – is a little shaky. But he _really_ means well!”

Mila raised an eyebrow. “ _Bozhe_. Seeing that you came to The Victory Garden in tears, I’m not going to go _that_ far. But I do know that you love him, and that he loves you, even if he’s a dumbass sometimes.”

“You’re not wrong. Thank you, Mila,” Sara said in a sing-song voice, feeling leagues lighter than she had when she’d interrupted Yuuri and Mila’s work day. And as if Mila could read Sara’s mind, she reached out for Sara’s hand again.

“You never have to apologize for coming to me when you’re upset – Yuuri and Viktor, either. We’re your friends and we love you. You’re not a burden, either.”

“Mila...”

“Trust me, Sara. Here, let me do something.” Mila patted Makkachin’s back and clicked at him so he would look at her. She put her hand under his snout to look into his eyes and give him some long command in Russian that Sara had no hope of construing, and the big poodle clambered to his feet and trotted out of the room.

“What are you...”

Mila hummed a little. “You’ll see, Sara. Ah,”

Makkachin was back as quick as he’d left, now carrying a small leather pocketbook-looking thing. Mila thanked Makkachin, again in Russian, and gave him a kiss on the nose for his trouble. He settled back down next to her and looked at the pocketbook thing expectantly as Mila set it on the coffee table and opened it. Even Vicchan sat up in Sara’s lap.

“What’s that?”

Mila opened the pocketbook, which wasn’t a pocketbook at all, but a kind of travel notebook and pen that folded out together. She took the funny-looking pen, which reminded Mila of a feather quill without the feather upper, and wet the tip with her tongue.

“Alright, let’s say that you could tell Michele exactly what about his behavior upsets you. Like, in a phrase or so.”

Sara wrinkled her nose. It was an odd request, and she had to mull over her words for a moment. “I’d, uh… I think I’d tell him first that he needs to stop living only for me, that he needs to stop trying to control me. I don’t need him to be a knight in shining armor because I’m not a damsel in distress.”

“That’s good!” Mila said, setting the pen to the paper and writing something down. Ink flowed shiny and black from the nib, though there wasn’t an inkwell and it didn’t seem to be the kind of pen with a cartridge. _What a conundrum._ Sara couldn’t make out the words Mila wrote from the angle she sat at.

“Anything else?”

“Hmm… _yeah_ ,” Sara said, chuckling a little to herself. “I’d tell him that I’m really and truly a lesbian, so he can stop giving the third degree to every guy who looks my way.”

Mila snickered. “Awesome. Okay,” she tore the paper off the little pad and pushed it towards Sara. “How does this look?”

Sara picked up the paper and read over it. The first point read, _I am my own knight, not a damsel, and I don’t need you can’t live only for me._ The second read, _I am a lesbian and not interested in men. Men are not all just trying to steal my virtue_.

“Is that okay?”

“It looks great, but, uh… Mila, what’s it _for_?”

“Oh! Well, it’s just something for you to put in your pocket for now. I know _you_ know these things, but it might help you to read them and remind yourself when things with Michele seem overwhelming. But the next time he tries to start with any narrative that’s detrimental or overbearing, I want you to just read that to him.”

“I think the self-affirmations will help _me_ , but do you really think reading them to Mickey will help him get the point?”

“I really do.”

There was such conviction in Mila’s voice that Sara found herself smiling a little doe-eyed at her. Really, Mila had helped Sara’s mood a considerable amount, and just maybe this would get through to Michele, too. Sara gently lifted Vicchan out of her lap to shift onto her knees and scoot closer to Mila, who watched with a neutral expression belied by the way she’d become so still. There was the impulse to do one of several things in Sara’s mind, but instead she simply leaned close and pressed a somewhat lingering kiss against Mila’s cheek. There was the feeling of brushing against butterfly wings and a second where all Sara could smell was honey and lilacs, and then she pulled away.

Mila blinked at her, a smile working its way onto her plush lips even as she was sitting back and getting her legs in front of her to climb to her feet.

“Any time, Sara,” she said to the unspoken thank-you, “absolutely _any_ time.”

  
  


☾

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we've got some drama, what do you think?
> 
> Mila's apartment is one of my favorite things to write about. And yes, maybe there's a little bit of a goth undercurrent with her in this fic, but what can I say? Our girl's got great taste. And as far as Viktor and Yuuri's apartment goes, that's a real sofa that my grandparents used to own. It was the best for naps in the afternoon.
> 
> The fifteen-year anniversary of the Strokes album Room On Fire in 2018 (when this was written); the album came out October 23, 2003.


	4. Walking the Cow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara does what Mickey forbade her to do. Mila sings her praise. Emil balances work and play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hyperlinks to some of the art referenced as well as a playlist with some songs referenced in one passage

Sara dreamed often of a goddess she couldn’t place, a caricature of Vesta with flames on her fingertips and sparks at her lips. When Sara was in high school, she had taken a trip to Washington D.C. – there was a hall in the National Gallery of Art with sculptures of various figures; [companions](https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.1272.html) [of](https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.56352.html) [Diana](https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/diana-46580) and personifications of principles like [Justice](https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.12184.html). Surely this was one of those come to life, with the familiarity wrought in curves and gestures Sara was captivated by. She would wander through empty fields at the goddess’ beckons, barefoot through the snow flurries that brushed her skin like wisps of cotton. Always following, unable to look away. If she could look back, she’d see the way life returned to the winter landscape in her wake.

Awake, the fiery figure worked her way into Sara’s art like a demanding leading actress, second only to the newfound love Sara had found for working with capturing the weaves of sweaters and the patterns of flannels in ink.

She captured skin in her notebook with charcoal the way [Bernini](https://affrescoitaliano.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/immagine-per-il-post_1.jpg) had pulled it from stone, dynamic and yielding. Never before had Sara hungered to paint skin like [Bouguereau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/William-Adolphe_Bouguereau_%281825-1905%29_-_The_Birth_of_Venus_%281879%29.jpg), or to capture the gaze of [Godward](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:When_the_heart_is_young,_by_John_William_Godward.jpg). Now, it was all she thought of, that and her muse. It was a budding obsession, the strength of which Sara had never known in a metaphysical muse. She was being haunted, but it was intoxicating and warm. And when her friends looked over her shoulders at her drawings, she was telling the truth when she said she didn’t know who she was drawing.

☾

Michele hadn’t said a word to Sara in hours. He was at the small dining table, a cup of coffee that had long ago gone cold and an open newspaper in front of him like it would distract from the fact that Sara could _feel_ him watching her. The one bathroom in the house was downstairs, so Sara couldn’t help that she was walking around in his line of sight. She’d done all she could getting ready in her bedroom upstairs, but there was no way she was going to go out without washing her face and doing something with her hair. He’d have to get over it.

“You could still cancel,” Michele said abruptly.

Sara turned away from the window slowly, her hands still at her face, fastening her earrings. “What?”

Michele hadn’t looked up from the newspaper, and Sara was ready to believe it had been her imagination when he repeated, “You could cancel.”

“And why would I do that, Mickey?” _I thought we were done with this._

“You don’t even like hockey.”

Sara squeezed her eyes shut. “Mickey, we’ve been over this.”

“You barely know these people, Sara!” Michele cried, throwing the newspaper onto the table.

“Mickey, I spend half my waking hours at school. I know Isabella. Stop acting like that’s your issue and say what you mean,” Sara snapped.

“Fine,” Michele said, pushing back from the table and standing so forcefully that the chair fell over backwards. “You know how I feel about you going places without me to protect you -”

“Without you to _protect_ me?” Sara repeated, just barely keeping her voice even. “Mickey, we’re twenty-two! I haven’t needed you to fight my battles since I was in grade school.”

“Sara,” Michele reached out to catch her hand, looking obviously pained when Sara pulled out of his grasp. “I know men better than you do. You don’t understand how ruthless they can be, how – how interested they are in stealing the virtue of pretty girls like you.”

“Can you even _hear_ yourself? Tell me, are you really that close-minded?” Sara yanked her jacket off the couch with more force than necessary and pulled it on, even though Isabella wouldn’t be picking her up for a little while yet.

Michele didn’t approach her again, but he leaned as far over the table as he dared. “There isn’t any man out there worthy of you, Sara. And you’re going to be surrounded by all kinds of disgusting people at a _hockey_ _game_ of all things.”

 _Oh for the love of god. Yeah, I bloody_ know _there isn’t a man worthy of me._ “Mickey, how many times do I have to tell you?” Sara cried, shoving her hands into her pockets. “I don’t care if _no man_ is worthy of me – I don’t care one way or another!”

“But Sara -”

There was a piece of paper in one of the pockets. It was the note Mila had scribbled for Sara in the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s living room. Running her thumb over the paper, Sara felt almost like Mila was there, whispering in her ear. _The next time he tries to start with any narrative that’s detrimental or overbearing, I want you to just read that to him._ And really, with Michele scowling at Sara from behind the table with storm clouds brewing in his eyes, what was there to lose?

“Michele Crispino, you _listen_ to me. You’ve been spending so much time obsessing over me and the decisions I might make that you don’t have a life of your own. And you need to cut it out!”

Michele watched his sister, purple-blue eyes so much like her own wide with surprise. With a deep breath, Sara unfolded the paper and glanced down at it. She thought for a moment about paraphrasing, but decided to read directly from the paper.

“I am my own knight, not a damsel, and I don’t need you can’t live only for me. Moreover, I am a lesbian and not at all interested in dating men – and men are not all just trying to steal my _virtue_.”

Sara wasn’t sure what to expect – after all, it was just words on a piece of exceptional quality paper. But for a moment after she spoke, her ears were filled with a kind of buzzing and she could swear that the house itself was holding its breath. Michele’s eyes were locked on hers, unblinking. In spite of everything, Sara was struck by the youth she could see in her twin’s face. _When’s the last time we looked at each other like this? When have we been able to talk without his temper or my defiance getting in the way?_

She wanted to say something, wanted to reach out to him – who really was the only constant she’d had in life for so many years, no matter how much he drove her up the wall – but at that moment her phone buzzed where it sat on the couch. And like that, the moment was over.

“Isabella’s at the light before the turn. She’s almost here.”

Michele was silent as Sara wound her scarf on and straightened her sweater beneath her jacket. She could feel him watching her again, though. It would have been easy to confront him again, but Sara knew better. She knew Michele. He needed to process things. Maybe this time, he’d finally understand. Maybe.

He trailed after her to the foyer, his sock-footed steps like echoes after the sound of Sara’s boots. When she reached out to open the front door, Michele put his hand on her shoulder.

“Sara?”

Sara swallowed a flare of trepidation – but his tone was soft; he wasn’t going to argue anymore. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry for yelling. You’re right – I do get obsessive. You deserve your own space.”

For a heartbeat, Sara wasn’t sure she heard him correctly. _He admitted he’s in the wrong? Did something happen to him when I yelled?_ Isabella was waiting, though, and there was no time to unpack all that. “Thank you, Mickey. I love you.”

“Love you, too. Have fun at your hockey game.”

Michele had wrinkled his nose about the hockey, and Sara was still smiling to herself when she got to Isabella’s car.

There was about an hour before the game was meant to start when Isabella arrived at the little house to pick Sara up. She was all kinds of prepared, from what Sara could see, to sit in a cold ice rink for however long – there was a folded blanket in the backseat of the sedan, and a big thermos was sitting on the passenger floorboard.

“You ready?”

Sara smiled. She knew next to nothing about hockey, even after hearing Yuri talk about it all the time, but she was looking forward to the evening all the same. “Ready.”

  
  


☾

  
  


Yuri was in the stands, scowling between the ice and his phone. When Sara got closer, she could see that he was FaceTiming with Otabek. When she glanced over her shoulder, Isabella nodded and made a shooing motion with her free hand. Biting her lip against a smile, Sara sat on the bench behind Yuri and put her hand on his shoulder, ducking down so her face was in the shot.

“Hi guys!”

Yuri, to his credit, didn’t jump, just _tsked_ and shrugged her off, though he did angle the phone so Sara and Otabek could better see each other. “You’re almost as bad as Mila, Sara. That’s _not_ a compliment, I don’t know why you’re smiling.”

On screen, Otabek rolled his eyes. He was sprawled on a bed, from what Sara could tell, apparently all set up for whatever hours long rant Yuri was going to bestow upon him. He grinned at Sara, though. “It’s good to see you, Sara. Been a while – still keeping the counter at Bennet’s?”

“Sure am, when art school and the Victory Garden aren’t keeping me away.”

Yuri’s eyebrow raised in the little mirrored image of him in the screen, apparently indicating something to Otabek. Otabek shrugged a little at Yuri, muttering something under his breath in Russian. Sara didn’t really mind that it was obviously meant to go over her head; she was the one intruding, anyway. She just had one more thing to say to Otabek.

“Hey, Otabek, is that [one of the guys](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/aaahhrealmonsters/images/0/04/Krumm_looking_upwards.png/revision/latest?cb=20171017201920) from _Aaahh!!! Real Monsters_ on your shirt?”

“Wh – Sara, _no_. Oh my god, don’t you know who [Daniel Johnston](https://live.staticflickr.com/3849/32762895432_6f75b0e512_b.jpg) is? _Sara_?”

Sara could only shrug – old Nick cartoons she knew, but she could never keep up with Otabek’s more obscure tastes in music and media. “You should text me sometime and tell me. I’ve _missed_ talking to you, kiddo. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi – I'm here with Isabella Yang.”

Yuri groaned, holding the phone close to his face so Otabek could get the full experience. “Of _course_ you’re in JJ’s cheering section. What a disgrace.”

Muffled by Yuri’s face, Sara could hear Otabek say, “Come on, Yura, you’re just mad that the intramural league has the ice tonight. Don’t be such a grump.”

“Beka, you _know_ I hate that guy,” Yuri whined, not moving the phone.

Sara took it as her cue to return to Isabella. She gave Yuri’s shoulder another squeeze. “Thanks for letting me interrupt. It was nice saying hi, Otabek! Also, mind your phone doesn’t die, Yuri,”

Yuri brandished a backup battery from the pocket of his leopard spotted bomber without looking in Sara’s direction, waving his fingers around it as Otabek’s muffled goodbye reached Sara’s ears. Isabella wasn’t sitting too far away, and Sara climbed through the stands to her side.

“Now I don’t want to scare you,” Isabella started as she scooted and opened her arm to pull Sara under the large pashmina around her shoulders, “but I’m a little different at hockey games than in class. I promise I’m not usually this intense, but… _JJ’s_ playing.”

Sara laughed and rested her head against Isabella’s for a second. “I won’t hold it against you.”

“Thank you, Sara,” Isabella giggled. She sobered as soon as the players started coming out onto the ice. “Oh! Let me show you how to _JJ Style_!”

  
  


☾

  
  


It was Sunday before Sara got back into town – back to see Mila.

The hockey game had been good, if uneventful (Sara had heard plenty of stories about ‘enforcers’ from Yuri over the summer. There _had_ been a scare when JJ shook his gloves onto the ice, but it was only to hold his hands aloft in double hooks and yell “it’s JJ Style!”). And when she’d arrived home, Michele hadn’t even given her the third degree; he’d poked his head out of his bedroom to ask after her and then gone back inside, even though it wasn’t really late.

There hadn’t been any real snow, not enough to stick yet, but Michele still insisted on not letting Sara bike to Main Street. Anyway, it was gray and cold out – why tempt fate and catch a cold?

“But I don’t know when I’ll be ready to come home, I don’t want to make you wait around all day,” Sara had argued.

“Nonsense. You’re going to Mila’s, aren’t you? She’ll drop you home, I’m sure.”

Sara hadn’t had a comeback for that, so with a blush dangerously bright on her face she followed Michele to the car.

She almost turned back twice, walking up the stairs to Mila’s apartment. Michele was idling at the curb, waiting to see her safely inside. Theoretically, she could leave and Mila would never know Sara had been on her doorstep. _What am I thinking?_ Sara chided herself. _Mila is my friend. My_ best _friend, probably. Why am I so nervous?_

So Sara shifted the strap of her art bag (grabbed from the chair in her room as an afterthought, in case she needed some sort of an excuse) and knocked on the door before she could think her way out of it. All was silent for what seemed like an eternity, so Sara tentatively knocked again. This time, she could hear the shuffle of feet on hardwood approaching the door. Why did her heart leap in her chest, knowing Mila was there, just on the other side of the door?

“Sara! Hi,” Mila was blinking like she had been in the dark, but a smile was making its way across her face like a rising sun. Her hair was held away from her face by two chunky clips reminiscent of the 90’s, exposing the shaved sides. “I didn’t know you were coming,”

 _Maybe a surprise was a bad idea_. “Hi, Mila. I should’ve texted you, huh?”

Mila shrugged, still smiling in an unbothered sort of way. “Nah, it’s fine. Wanna come in?”

Sara glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the street. Michele wouldn’t be able to see her from there, but she found herself hoping that he’d already driven away, quite in contrast to her earlier thoughts. With a deep breath, Sara followed Mila inside. She’d walked through to the living room and was leaning against the back of the couch, watching Sara and picking idly at the pilling on the sleeve of her sweater. Without windows, the living room was dim, lit only by a reading lamp by the arm chair and a candle on the table. There was an Interpol song [playing](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Dgo46E5cLq49ZUZjbkGhQ?si=3P8ifmLuRpqYwM7nBE6cWQ) on a speaker somewhere. Heavy-looking books were open over the coffee table – it looked like Mila had been researching something the old fashioned way, rather than googling.

“So. What’s up?”

Sara jumped a little, her eyes flying back to Mila’s face. The earlier trepidation seemed to melt away, and suddenly Sara was bubbling with excitement at what she had come to relay to her. She dumped her bag and jacket by the door and practically danced across the floor to lean against the sofa next to Mila.

“I went to the hockey game!”

Mila’s eyebrows shot up. “You did?”

“I did!” Sara echoed. “It was fun! Yurio let me butt in on his FaceTime call with Otabek, and Isabella taught me how to JJ-Style – and by the way, you were right; JJ’s nice but he really _is_ a bit much.”

“Wait,” Mila interjected, catching one of the hands Sara had been animatedly gesturing with. “Does this mean your brother stopped fussing at you, or…?”

Sara wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly. We had another pretty big fight before I left – the same old thing, you know. But that’s what I wanted to tell you about, actually,”

Mila looked a little reproachful at that. “You don’t seem... _upset_ , did something else happen?”

“Remember that piece of paper you wrote for me? When we were at Yuuri and Viktor’s?”

Mila’s fingers tensed minutely around the hand still holding Sara’s. “Yes?”

“Well I remembered it when I was getting really worked up. Remembered what you said to me, about reading my self-affirmations to Michele when he’s being too much. Which is kinda weird, I guess, when you think about it, but anyway, that’s what I did. And it was the weirdest thing, he totally just backed off after that! And it’s only been Friday night and Saturday since, but you wouldn’t believe how different he’s been, it’s like something finally got through to him. I really think he’s going to lay off my case now, and I think he’ll -”

Mila cut her off, dipping forward and pressing a firm kiss to Sara’s lips. Sara almost flinched away as numbness as if left by an electric shock enveloped her, but instead she pushed forward. But as quick as she’d leaned in, Mila was springing away, leaving Sara staring at her with wide eyes.

“Damn it, I shouldn’t have done that,” Mila began, her cheeks an impressive shade of red. She didn't sound regretful, though.

It was Sara’s turn to interrupt, putting her hands on Mila’s flaming cheeks and pulling their mouths back together. The numbness was more like sensation returning to your lips after a dose of novocaine; not unpleasant and easy to forget. Mila seemed to melt against Sara, her hands finding a place to rest on Sara’s hips. Kissing Mila was unlike kissing any girl Sara had before – she felt a weight come off her shoulders and each beat of her heart was like a piece of a song. She didn’t want to stop, but Mila had started to giggle and it was contagious.

“I’m, ah, so, so glad you were able to get through to Michele,” Mila started again, only slightly less giggly. “I just – I didn’t know how else to… I didn’t think, I just...”

Sara smiled back at Mila, lacing her fingers together at the nape of her neck. “I am, too. Thank you, Mila. It worked like a charm.”

Mila was biting her bottom lip, her cheeks still bright as her hair. “So… you aren’t mad that I kissed you?”

Sara shifted her weight infinitesimally, scooting that much closer to Mila. “No, I think I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time but I was afraid to do anything – or even think too much about it…” she let out a breathy laugh. “Kinda stupid, I guess.”

For a moment, a bud of uncertainty threatened to form, even in each other’s arms. Mila rubbed small circles onto Sara’s hipbone. Her hands felt peculiar on Sara’s hips – they weren’t cold, but their presence still made shivers run up and down Sara’s spine. It was almost like little pulses of electricity were emanating from her fingertips.

“Would you – and you can say no, I won’t mind – would you want to kiss me again?”

“Like… a third time?” Sara teased, suddenly braver than she had been a moment ago. Mila raised an eyebrow, and when their lips met once more, they were fighting smiles.

  
  


☾

  
  


The playlist still spilling from the speakers hidden on the bookshelf had cycled from Interpol to the Cure before Mila sighed and rocked back on her heels. Sara kept her arms around Mila, though she was ready to let her go if she had to. Mila wore a soft smile on her kiss-irritated lips, though, and she reached out to smooth down Sara’s mussed-up hair.

“Was there anything you needed? When you came by, I mean. Not that – I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t keeping you from something.”

Sara studied Mila’s eyes, working not to grin like an idiot just because she was being held by her, was being asked after by her, had her chapstick smeared across her lips. “No, I just wanted to see you. To _talk_ to you, to tell you about the game. In person.”

Mila was smiling again, wider so that her deep blue eyes were crinkled into small slits. “Do you want anything to drink? Do you want to sit down or anything?”

“Are _you_ going to get something to drink?” Sara caught the ends of Mila’s hair with her fingertips, toying with them just to feel the softness against her skin.

“I was going to get some tea right when you arrived, but this was… more important,”

Sara smiled properly then. “Alright, in that case I’d like some tea – but _only_ if it’s not a bother.”

Mila kissed the tip of Sara’s nose. Sara felt it like an ink stamp on her skin. “It’s not. Why don’t you sit, get comfy? I’ll be right back.”

Sara watched Mila slip down the hall to the kitchen before rounding the couch to settle down on it. She looked over to the coffee table to glean what she could from the books that were spread out there only to find that, instead of being open and covering the surface of the coffee table, there was only a stack of heavy leather tomes stacked in the middle. The candle Sara had noticed earlier, wedged between the books to sit on the only clear space of the table, was now on top of the stack. Sara blinked rapidly, frowning. _Did I really see them open on the table? Judging from the wax on that book, they’ve been like this for a while. Weird._ It made her feel funny – not exactly unsettled, not scared, but definitely strange. The Nick Cave poster seemed to be waiting, eyebrow cocked, for her reaction.

Choosing not to worry about it, though, Sara pulled her boots off and reclined against the arm of the couch. She could hear Mila in the kitchen, so she figured it was safe to send two texts without looking like she wasn’t interested in Mila’s company.

The first was to Michele.

  
  


**11:43 me:** Mickey, I hope you’re not still in front of Mila’s building.

sorry I couldn’t give you a clear signal that I was safe inside.

 **11:43 fratello** 🙇🏻 **:** No, I'm home. Stai bene?

 **11:44 me:** all good!

  
  


Sara knew her twin would probably launch into some explanation of what he’d been doing since he got home, or his plans for the day, but she wasn’t too interested in that. Not right now. The second text Sara sent made her feel a little like a kid in high school, a little giddy and mischievous.

  
  


**11:44 me** : YUURI

 **11:44** 🌱🌳 **Yuurino** 🌸🌿 **:** Sara! Is everything alright???

 **11:45 me** : YEAH ITS GREAT IM AT MILAS AND WEVE BEEN SMOOCHIN !!!!

 **11:45** 🌱🌳 **Yuurino** 🌸🌿 **:** W H A T

 **11:45** 🌱🌳 **Yuurino** 🌸🌿 **:** for real???? that’s so exciting!!!!

 **11:46 me:** I know 😭♥️ also why didn’t anyone tell me she was into me??

 **11:46** 🌱🌳 **Yuurino** 🌸🌿 **:** Wait Sara are you really saying you didn’t know?

 **11:46 me:** …. uH YEAH??

 **11:47 me:** oh wait she’s coming back

YUURI SHE MADE ME TEA 😭

 ** **11:48**** **🌱🌳** ** **Yuurino**** **🌸🌿** ** **:**** Lol best of luck!

  
  


Interestingly, the matter of the books being moved didn’t bug Sara any more that day. Mila returned to the small living room with two mugs of tea and settled on the couch next to Sara. Sara couldn’t keep the smile off her lips, warmth spreading through her body from more than just the mug in her hands. For a moment, the uncertainty was back – what was this, where they _something_ now? How was she supposed to act? Mila was as still as Sara was on her side of the couch, her feet on the ground and the mug of tea clutched between her knees.

“Are you -”

“Does this -”

Sara held her breath, waiting for Mila to try again to speak. Mila, though, was doing the same.

“Go ahead -”

“What were you -”

This time, both Mila and Sara dissolved into laughter. The tension lifted just like that, and Sara felt muscles she hadn’t realized were tense relax. But still, this was something it would probably be wise to talk about before anything else happened, right? As if reading her mind, Mila cleared her throat and set her mug on the coffee table. It was clear that she had something she wanted to say. Sara tried not to feel nervous – this was _Mila_ , after all.

“Um, I guess I’d just wanted to say that this doesn’t have to change anything, you know? If you, uh, don’t want it to,” Sara said, fixing her eyes on the wall above Mila’s head. There was a small painting in a wide ash wood frame, some kind of _memento mori,_ that was like a dark window among the bright tapestry and collection of framed pressed flowers bordering it.

“What if I _do_ want something to change?” Mila said in a voice so soft Sara was afraid she might’ve imagined it.

Fireworks, butterflies doing flips, a hive of bees – Sara felt electric. She carefully lifted her own mug of tea out of the way as she pulled her legs under her to get on her knees next to Mila. Mila looked up at her through her eyelashes, as still and perfect as a painting. When Sara leaned in, her dark hair fell like a curtain along their faces, and Mila’s kiss tasted of the honey she’d mixed into her tea. Was it enough?

“I do, too,” Sara whispered against Mila’s mouth.

Mila smiled and kissed Sara again, warm and fizzy as she drew out her lower lip. Sara would have been content to let it go on, really, but she was still holding the mug of tea up and out of the way, and her jeans pinched behind her knees uncomfortably. She pulled away and leaned back against the arm of her side of the couch once more, lavishing in the way Mila’s impossibly blue eyes followed her. She took a deep drink of the tea, some floral blend she was sure Yuuri had had a hand in creating, and settled her legs out in front of her once again.

She had to slow down; an ever-growing part of her wanted to swallow Mila whole, to climb down her throat and make a home in her chest. Sara drew a long breath, chuckling sheepishly when Mila raised a sharp red brow and smirked. When Mila didn’t object, Sara tucked her toes under Mila’s thigh. Mila quirked her lips and raised her eyebrow again, and the fireworks in Sara’s stomach traveled southward. _Keep it together, keep it together. Be cool._

Sara cocked her head to the side, letting her hair fall over her shoulder in a ripple that was most likely not as pretty as she imagined it should be. “Tell me, is this Slowdive you have playing?”

Mila had both eyebrows raised now. “Yes?”

“Otabek introduced them to me over the summer, you know.”

Mila scoffed (in a way that definitely didn’t sound jealous) and rolled her eyes, turning to mirror Sara’s body language while still keeping Sara’s toes warm and tucked under her thigh. She didn't poke fun at Sara like Otabek had: _you lived in_ Brooklyn _and don't know basic indie or alternative tenets?_ “And who do you think introduced _him_ , hmm?”

Sara grinned, loving the way one side of Mila’s lips was lifted more than the other in some mock-derisive curl. “Wanna introduce me to some of your favorite bands, too?”

For a moment, Mila looked surprised. But the smirk became a smile, and she said, “I’d like nothing more.”

  
  


☾

Sara was surprised when Michele didn’t meet her at the front door – really, surprised that he hadn’t been hovering by the front window. But he wasn’t, leaving her free to lean over and kiss Mila goodbye. Mila held Sara’s hand until she couldn’t, leaving her fingers outstretched after her. It was all so sweet that Sara had to fight the urge to crawl back into the creaky front bench of the old Buick and kiss Mila again… and again.

“Mickey?” Sara called, unlocking the front door. It was true that not many people in Eidolon locked their doors, especially when they were home, but the Crispinos had grown up in cities, and neither of them trusted people as much as they let on. Michele didn’t answer.

“Dove sei, Michele?”

It wasn’t really like him to already be in his room this early in the day – usually, Michele lounged around the living room on his laptop, typing away furiously. Sara felt a flicker of concern. Perhaps her twin was upset about her hanging out with Mila, even when he’d been the one to encourage her to. Still, nothing felt… _off_ … about the house. Sara but her bag and keys down on the kitchen table and made her way through the living room, listening for her brother. The bedroom he’d shared with Emil was the only room off the hall, aside from the bathroom they shared. The door was slightly ajar.

“Mickey?” Sara repeated, pushing the door open.

The bedroom lights were on, and like every door in the house, it creaked dramatically. Michele was sprawled on the twin sized bed against the back wall, sound asleep. He hadn’t even stirred at the creaky door, but something else had. His laptop was open next to him, balancing precariously on the edge of the bed. Sara leaned further into the room, squinting at the screen. Much to her surprise, a familiar face was staring back.

“Wh – _Emil_?”

“ _Shh_ , don’t wake him up,” Emil said in a forced whisper on the other side of the screen.

Sara was at a loss for words. “What -”

Emil gave her one of those fond smiles she’d seen him give Michele for years. There might as well have had a heart-eyes filter on. “We were skyping and he fell asleep.”

Sara blinked rapidly. That tracked, of course – she knew the boys tried to talk as often as they could, but it was difficult with Emil’s game and practice schedule on top of his schoolwork. It made sense that Michele would’ve agreed to a call, even if he was sleepy. But that Emil would stick around, that he wouldn’t hang up when Michele fell asleep?

“How long has he been asleep?” Sara asked, creeping forward to stand at the edge of the bed. From here, she could see the alcove created by the closet where Emil’s months-empty bed was tucked.

“Not long,” Emil answered, impossibly soft in a way that made Sara think otherwise. There was a scrape on his cheek, probably the result of some lacrosse-related incident, that reminded her suddenly and violently of when they were all kids, playing on the sidewalks of Brooklyn.

“Don’t you have homework?” She hoped she didn’t sound too chastising, too far away from who she used to be. Maybe there was an inherent edge to her voice, because Michele stirred in his sleep then. Both Sara and Emil froze, holding their breath, but Michele only sighed and nuzzled deeper into the crook of his elbow, the light from the laptop casting a bluish glow over the half of his face still exposed.

Emil kept the silence a little longer, his eyes moving from Sara’s to study Michele through the screen. After a time, he raised what Sara could tell was a notebook.

“’M doing it.”

Sara looked between them – her cantankerous twin, sleeping soundly and looking more relaxed than she thought she’d seen him in ages, and the friend they’d had for so long, something like a plea in his eyes from his dorm room upstate in Geneva. Was there anything for her to say? Michele would probably wake soon enough, anyway – it was only very early in the evening.

“Alright. But really, get your homework done, huh, bambolino?”

“Nice seeing you, Sara.”

And Sara left the room, the skype call still open between Emil and the sleeping Michele.

  
  


☾

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if we kissed in your apartment while a tender playlist was on... and we're both girls :o
> 
> the hyperlinks included are to: some sculptures that I personally found inspiring for my own art at the National Gallery of Art and worked into the story; the monster from that old Nickelodeon cartoon vs the late great Daniel Johnston character Jeremiah; a playlist with some of the songs mentioned playing in Mila's apartment when Sara is over there. for any of them individually, leave me a note and I'll get it to you.
> 
>   
> what do you think? let me know below or on tumblr @peachy-chulanont!


	5. Keeping Warm Is Easier Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friendsgiving at the Katsuki-Nikiforov's ft. the Katsuki family. Otabek's home from college, and who else....?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt title: listening to Mistki in the woods

Sara had worried about her brother often when they lived in Brooklyn. She never let on, of course – there was no need to start some sort of conflict or accidentally push Michele into being someone he wasn’t. Even though they lived in Brooklyn from a young age, he never really fit in with their peers. And really, Sara hadn’t, either. Michele was uptight, high-strung. He didn’t smoke, he didn’t go to parties. He didn’t wear wife-beaters or basketball shorts. His hair was never done with a fade or quiff. He didn’t have many real friends – or any at all – that lived in town. And outside of town, it was really only Emil. Sara didn’t have many friends either – they were intimidated by Michele, who was her shadow.

So the twins just had each other in Brooklyn. And that’s just how things were. It was fine that way for a long time.

Eidolon was different from Brooklyn in a lot of ways. Sara knew that she herself had changed just living there these months. Sure, she missed the subway and the constant presence of people. She missed the familiarity of gray cement and weary facades. But here she could breathe a little easier, she knew the names of more people, she looked forward to seeing the stars through her skylight at night before going to bed and in the very early hours of the morning when she woke to make coffee.

It took longer for Michele to adjust. Even when Sara thought her twin had finally started to settle into their new world, she’d been wrong. It wasn’t until after that fight they had in the fall that Sara saw a change in him. His smiles came a little easier, softer around his eyes, and their arguments became less frequent. Michele still worried about her, Sara knew. And that was fine. They had always been there for each other, always had each other’s backs. She didn’t want to lose that. But seeing him start to go out on his own was everything to her.

  
  


☾

  
  


Before Sara could believe it, classes at the art school were stopping for autumn break. Campuses all over the country were closing and sending students home for the holiday.

Thanksgiving had always been something celebrated halfheartedly in her house; the Crispinos were Italians first, even though the twins had lived in the states from a young age, and never got into the habit. Usually, Thanksgiving simply provided a break for the family to spend time together, away from school or work. With Giulia and Leone back in Naples, the family didn’t try and celebrate anymore. Spending money on plane tickets was reserved for Christmastime. That way, then, Sara and Michele got to see more family than just their parents.

It was interesting to see the way her friends celebrated the holiday, seeing as they were all immigrants. Emil was born to Czech immigrants in Saratoga and Otabek to Kazakh immigrants in Newark, though he grew up in Brighton Beach; Yuuri and Yuri had both lived in America from very young ages. Christophe had moved from Switzerland to New York ten years prior. Even Viktor had his fair share of Thanksgivings under his belt. Mila was the only one of the bunch relatively new to the tradition – not that that bothered her.

“It’s kinda a stupid holiday, don’t you think?” Mila asked, propping her chin on her hand.

Sara raised an eyebrow at her, pretending to be taken aback. “What, you don’t like the Macy’s Parade?”

Mila rolled her eyes. “You know they don’t let Sonic in the parade anymore, just because he squashed some police officers,”

“I don’t think that’s _quite_ the way that went, tesoro,” Sara giggled. Mila stuck her tongue out in a petulant sort of way. Sara checked over her shoulder around the otherwise sleepy cafe before leaning over the table to drop a kiss on Mila’s nose (and then her cheek, and the corner of her mouth for good measure). Mila batted her away but ran her fingers through Sara’s hair as she pulled back.

“Anyway, the parade is fine. Celebrating what became the genocide of Native Americans, though...”

Sara sighed. “I know. It’s gross. But you were saying you’re invited to the Katsuki-Nikiforov dinner?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah! Yuuri’s parents and his sister are coming in from the city, I think Kolya’s hosting this year. I haven’t celebrated with them before because usually everyone goes to their place, but this year the Katsukis are coming to Eidolon.”

“Oh, wow, I don’t think I’ve seen any of them since I was in high school. But you said they’re coming from Manhattan?”

Mila had just taken a sip of her drink and wrinkled her nose at the inconvenience. Once she swallowed, she said, “Yeah, that’s where they live?”

Sara shrugged. “In high school, the Katsukis were running a little Japanese restaurant in Brooklyn. It was called Yu-topia,”

“Oh! That’s the one, though! They must’ve upgraded to Manhattan,”

“You know, it’s about time, probably. Hiroko is possibly the best chef in the world.” Just thinking about the snacks she’d make when Sara was at their house having Yuuri tutor her in biology made the sandwich she’d ordered for lunch pale in comparison.

Mila giggled. “Yuuri makes her recipes sometimes and they’re always so good, but I don’t think I’ve ever had anything Mrs. Katsuki’s actually made.”

“You’d better bring sweatpants to change into,” Sara said, stretching her legs out a little to bump against Mila’s under the table. Mila gave her that lifted-eyebrow smirk and bumped her back.

“Am I going to have to fight Yurio for seconds? He’s been growing or something, he eats everything in sight. It’s like he’s trying to be Nik Antropov,”

Sara didn’t know who Antropov was, but it was true that Yuri had hit a growth spurt. Just over the summer, he’d gone from being a little taller than Yuuri to nearing Viktor’s height. Between the growth spurt and his hockey schedule, Sara thought that every time she’d seen the kid he’d mentioned something about being hungry.

“Probably,” she amended. “Gosh, I hadn’t thought about just how much he’s grown until now. Otabek is coming home from school, right? Can you imagine his face when he sees?”

Mila giggled into the back of her sweater-covered hand. “Beka’s been shorter than Yurio since Yurio was a sophomore, so it shouldn’t be too much of a blow. It’ll probably mean Yurio can’t steal his sweaters anymore, though.”

Sara involuntarily glanced down at the sweatshirt she had on under her denim jacket. It had Cyrillic writing across the chest – obviously something she’d poached from Mila’s apartment. Sara thought that if she could get Mila’s chunky sweater off, they’d find Sara’s worn out _Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness_ shirt. That wasn’t lost on either of them, but Sara couldn’t help but play coy.

She pretended to examine her short, lilac-painted nails. “What a pity and a shame,”

Under the table, Mila caught her ankle around Sara’s. “You’re the _worst_ ,”

“Yeah, but you _like_ me,” Sara joked back, leaning forward infinitesimally the way she always seemed to do when Mila met her eyes. There was a fire there, a world of night skies and illuminated stars, the depths of the ocean, the clearest of skies. Sara could get lost there. She wanted to.

Mila raised her chin just-so. “I really, _really_ do.”

And in that moment, Sara could’ve been somewhere among the stars.

  
  


☾

  
  


The Katsuki-Nikiforov apartment felt packed. There were just a few more people than Sara had seen there at its fullest, but even the open layout felt crowded. It was Black Friday, and instead of a rush to shop, Viktor and Yuuri had decided to hold a ‘Friendsgiving’. Even Sara had been able to wheedle her way out of a shift at Bennet’s. Between the Katsukis and Nikolai, more than enough food had been prepared the day before to feed the group. Even so, it looked like Christophe had brought an exorbitant amount of cheeses, and the Crispinos had brought plenty of wine. There was enough food in the house for each of them to work their ways into food comas.

Yuuri was trying to play gracious host as well as make sure his husband didn’t burn the apartment down. Everyone was talking, joking, catching up. There was music playing on the speakers somewhere, a playlist that Viktor had probably curated judging from the tell-tale 80s synths, but it could barely be heard over all the voices. Makkachin and Vicchan were both underfoot, unabashedly searching for scraps (and getting more than their fair share, as no one was really immune to those puppy eyes).

Emil had driven down to Eidolon from Saratoga early that morning. Sara had only known about his plan to do so for a few days; it had been a surprise to Michele. Now, Emil and Michele seemed practically joined at the hip, though Sara was sure Michele would deflect if that was mentioned to him.

Christophe sat with them in dining table chairs pulled into the living room, letting Emil go through the highlights of the lacrosse season. Of course, Christophe was mostly scrolling through the roster of players and asking Emil’s opinion on certain young men (Yuuri walked over at one point to ruffle Chris’ bleached blond hair and remind him that he was a little old to be respectably dating college students; Chris gasped so dramatically that Makkachin came bounding out of the kitchen to check on him).

Mari, Yuuri’s big sister, was in the armchair, close enough to comment on the discussion, though her eyes were on the TV. Otabek and Yuri were sat at opposite ends of the sofa, engrossed in some game they were playing on the old Nintendo GameCube that had been dusted off for the occasion. The last time Sara had seen Mari, she was in high school and Mari was home from college on a break. Sara’d always admired her – her wit and easygoing nature, the way she wore her hair and played sports. And if Sara had understood the story correctly, Mari had been the one to christen Yuri with the nickname ‘Yurio’ when they met after Yuuri and Viktor had gotten engaged. It had something to do with a J-Pop idol, apparently; after a few months of grumbling, Yuri had warmed up to it – possibly due to Mari’s status as a member of Team USA’s Women’s Hockey team. Mari stayed in the armchair long enough to whisper tips to Otabek in beating Yuri, then excused herself to make sure Viktor wasn’t burning the leftovers in the reheating process.

Mila’s prediction about Yuri not being able to steal Otabek’s clothes anymore had fallen short; Yuri was wearing a long-sleeved NYU shirt under an open flannel (which Sara recognized as belonging to Mila – honestly, one would think Yuri didn’t own any clothes of his own), studiously ignoring the way the sleeves of both shirts ended two inches above his wrist. Every time he made a sharp gesture with the controller, Sara’s eyes flew to the flash of pale skin there.

After feeling satisfied that she’d done enough to help around the kitchen, Sara allowed herself to relax. After all, Yuuri had kissed her temple and all but insisted she do so. She sat on the floor with her back against the couch, and Makkachin quickly ended up draped over her lap like a kind of heavy, fuzzy blanket. Mila came over not long after Sara settled down with a plate of fruit and cheeses. It was just the most simple thing, really, to rest her hand on Mila’s thigh, to sit close enough that their breathing ended up synced. Unconsciously, Sara was softly kneading Mila’s leg, relishing in the casual contact.

Mila was wearing some kind of sharp, spicy perfume instead of her usual musky lilacky scent that had Sara fighting not to bury her face in the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Instead, Sara watched Michele from the corner of her eye. She hadn’t told him about her and Mila – it wasn’t really like he needed to know, not if he was going to raise a fuss about it. But there was no misconstruing this, not with Mila casually winding a lock of Sara’s hair around her finger as she talked across the room to Otabek. Michele didn’t say anything to his twin. He turned his attention back to Emil’s story about a game gone awry without any sneer or harsh whisper in Italian. Sara didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until Mila bumped their hips together and drew her from her reverie. And then, as Sara watched, Michele glanced their way again – and this time, he looked both her and Mila in the eyes with the barest hint of a smile.

_Things are going to be different now._

  
  


☾

  
  


In spite of the chill, it still hadn’t properly snowed in Eidolon – not enough to stick, anyway.

Mila and Sara were walking through the woods that wrapped around Sara’s neighborhood. If any of Sara’s past girlfriends (if you could even call most of them that) had approached her and asked to take a walk, Sara would’ve balked. But it was entirely different to open the door to see Mila, holding aloft a box from the bakery and announcing that it was the perfect time to explore the wooded trails. Really, Sara thought she might follow Mila anywhere, if she was asked.

The pastries were a kind of peace offering for Michele, who watched his sister and Mila warily from the living room. Mila had hot chocolate for herself and Sara, though, so it was without a second thought that Sara pulled on her boots and jacket and bounded down the porch steps. Sure, finals were approaching and it was just windy enough to bite pale cheeks pink, but Sara couldn’t help herself. She wanted to do everything, explore everywhere, with Mila – even take a walk through the trees in December.

It was too cold not to wear gloves, but Sara could’ve sworn there was still some kind of electric buzz when she took Mila’s hand. Warmth spread through her. “Do you want to walk anywhere in particular?”

Mila smiled, and even with her eyes crinkled up like that, the winter light made her radiant. “I just kinda wanted to be in nature. And I wanted to be with you.”

There were trails made by people walking their dogs and deer living in the woods. Sara had been out on them over the summer, looking around. But this was different. Mila seemed to know where she was going, even though everything was really on a circuit that would lead them back to the start, and Sara was content to be led. Mila wore a knit hat that made the ends of her hair poof out against her scarf like a ruff of fox fur. In one hand she held the takeaway cup of hot chocolate; the other hand was laced with Sara’s.

It wasn’t very late, but the moon was already visible in the sky, a warning of the early sunset. Otherwise, the sky through the trees was the palest blue fading the gray. Sara wondered if she’d have ever taken a walk like this, in December, for the hell of it. She wondered if she’d have noticed things like the color of the sky or the shape the puff of Mila’s breath took if she still lived in Brooklyn. If she’d never met Mila.

They walked at a leisurely pace, crunching through half-frozen scrub and grass and dirt, sipping on their drinks. The tip of Mila’s nose had turned red ages ago; there was a smile teasing at the corners of her lips nonetheless, growing whenever she looked over at Sara or down at their intertwined hands.

“How’s your chocolate?”

Sara took a small sip of her drink. The plastic lid was fogged up when she lowered the drink. She gave Mila a smile. “Chilling rapidly, but still good.”

“Take mine, it’s still warm,”

Sara didn’t really mind the cold drink, but Mila was already holding out her own cup so Sara took it. And Mila was right; the paper cup was almost hot, even though they’d been out in the cold for twenty minutes at least. _How odd._

Sometimes things were like that with Mila. _Odd_. Sara’s toes stayed warmer when she was at Mila’s apartment, her drawing pencils didn’t rub her hand even after being held all day – her drinks didn’t turn cold even when they’d been left untouched on the table. There was something there, something that always sat in the corner of Sara’s mind, just out of reach. But more often than not, the easiest thing to do was to brush it aside. None of it was bad – in fact, all those things were quite pleasant. So why worry about it?

She turned her eyes on Mila, cocked her head so she could look up at her even though Sara was really something like an inch taller. “Is it ever weird living here with the Plisetsky bakery downstairs?”

Mila wrinkled her nose, so Sara had to stretch out and drop a kiss there before Mila could continue. Somehow, the wind picking up through the trees reminded Sara of a Mitski album – which was absurd. If anyone would’ve been playing Mitski among the trees, it probably would’ve been Sara and Mila themselves.

Mila still looked contemplative, as if trying to dredge up weird memories of the bakery to recount. “Not really. I mean, one time Yuri stole the spare key from Kolya’s office and broke in, took my Pussy Riot shirt, and wore it to school… which isn’t _weird_ , it’s pretty funny. I mean, we _both_ got in trouble for that...”

Sara giggled and brought their intertwined hands up to kiss the back of Mila’s. “I can’t believe that all this time I’ve been consorting with a delinquent.”

It was so easy to forget the odd things that happened around Mila when she stopped in her tracks to cradle Sara’s face like something precious and kiss her so sweetly.

☾

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Katsuki Mari appeared!!! She's an olympic women's hockey player??? holy shit, heart eyes, love that for her. also of course Yu-topia is a renowned manhattan restaurant, it's what they deserve. I love the Katsuki fam so much.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this short chapter!!! Let me know below or on tumblr @peachy_chulanont


	6. Hindsight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara's combined winter final for her art classes prompts a visit from the usual suspects. Things don't go to plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ft. jjbella

The winter final for Sara’s studio classes at the art school was an exhibition in one of the school’s galleries. There had been a quota of pieces she’d had to submit, and extra credit for branching beyond the mediums she was studying under professors. Of course Sara – the whole student body, really – had been preparing for this since the end of summer. The pieces were all accounted for, hanging in her allotted place in the gallery. Her curatorial rationale was framed and had already been graded and approved by her professors by the time people were actually coming around. Sara had even taken her parents through on a FaceTime call. They’d lauded her with praise the way absent parents do, but it didn’t ruffle Sara’s feathers like it once might’ve. Somehow, though, in spite of the way everything was in place, she felt like she was missing something.

Michele was driving Sara to the school before the gallery officially opened; there they were meeting, well, _everyone_. Viktor and Yuuri, still such massive supporters of Sara’s art, were quick to say they’d come along, and Christophe was coming by, too. Mila, naturally, would be there as well. Yuri was being kept home by Nikolai, but only because he had his own finals to study for.

The more Sara thought about it, the more full of butterflies her stomach felt. It wasn’t exactly that she was nervous for her friends to see her art, but she was feeling some preemptive loss with the end of her hard work fast approaching. And still in the back of her mind was that feeling that something was missing.

It was an odd turn of events, really, to have Michele playing the part of ‘calm twin’ while Sara did her best not to look like she was pacing (she was). He stood calmly to the side of one of the larger pieces Sara had on display – an eighteen inch square showing illustrations of various plants at the Victory Garden, styled to look like a page from an old botany textbook. He didn’t say anything about his sister’s pacing, though if it had been any other day, he surely would’ve complained about the clack of her heels on the polished cement floor.

A hand landed lightly on Sara’s upper arm. “Hello, _golubushka_.”

Sara spun around. Mila had beat Viktor and Yuuri to the galley, and she looked incredible to boot, wearing a navy patterned dress and boots. Somehow, her long bob haircut had been coaxed into a bun to show off the shaved sides of her head, and the gallery light made the purplish highlight on her cheeks shimmer like fairy dust.

Sara all but flung herself into her arms. Into her neck she whispered, “Mila, you’re _here_ ,”

“I sure am, gorgeous,” Mila said, kissing Sara’s cheek. She was wearing the spicy perfume she’d worn to Friendsgiving, and Sara didn’t want to let her go. Michele was watching them, though, and it didn’t seem right to be so clingy in front of him. With some reluctance, Sara removed her arms from around Mila’s neck, catching their hands together instead. The rings on each of their fingers clinked and caught pleasantly together.

The Katsuki-Nikiforovs arrived not long after Mila, which was a relief, because even though Michele had been so much more relaxed with the idea of Sara dating lately, he still was horribly awkward one-on-one with Mila. Yuuri had a small bouquet of winter flowers wrapped with a piece of cloth and twine, and he presented it to Sara with a slight flush on his cheeks. Sara’s heart felt over the moon.

“I’m so, so glad you’re here,” Sara said as she kissed Yuuri on each cheek before stretching up to greet Viktor, the bouquet carefully cradled against her chest. “It means the world to have your support.”

“We’re your friends,” Yuuri gently reminded her, looking at her through his thick eyelashes. “Of _course_ we’re here.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Viktor agreed.

Viktor was wearing a vintage Depeche Mode shirt tucked into pinstriped trousers with braces and a blazer. His cheeks were liberally dusted with that iridescent highlighter he’d worn at Midsummer. Sara thought she might’ve seen someone like Cole Becker wear a similar outfit, but she wasn’t going to mention that when it was obvious there was a certain _look_ Viktor was going for. Maybe like a shabby chic, less Gucci more rock-n-roll Harry Styles, but he’d probably burst into tears if Sara said that.

Yuuri looked much more… well, not _boring_ at all, but certainly less flamboyant than his husband in his patterned floral button-up, cuffed jeans, and boots. He’d gelled his hair out of his face and worn contacts, too, which was almost like pulling a Sailor Moon transformation. Sara didn’t get to see them dressed up very often, and it was always a treat to see them do so – even more so considering that it was _her_ exhibition they’d come to see. It made her feel warm and pleasantly buzzy, like she’d had a few glasses of wine.

“Christophe should be here soon, but you know him. He comes when he pleases,” Viktor explained, apparently missing innuendo he’d made. Mila and Yuuri caught each other’s eyes behind his back and snickered; even Michele was smirking where he stood off to the side.

“Well, shall we do a gallery walk?” Yuuri asked, appearing at Sara’s elbow. For a moment, she wanted to say no – but why? There was absolutely nothing wrong with leaving her unofficial post in front of her section of wall.

So Sara prepared a smile – and to her surprise, it came much more naturally than she’d thought it would. “Yes, that sounds nice.”

The bouquet went to rest on a nearby table, so she could be hands-free. When she turned to collect Mila, though, Mila waved her away. “You two go on. Viktor’s going over to the cheese and he said he’d bring me a glass of sauvignon blanc,”

“Babe, you’re only _twenty_ ,”

“ _Ti_ _shina_ ,” Mila hissed, the canine-baring smile on her face. Her eyes were sparkling; she was the picture of mischievousness. Sara chuckled to herself and let Yuuri lead her away.

About half of the works belonging to Sara’s classmates she’d seen before, but the other half of those were done outside of class (like the majority of her own pieces had been), and there were other classes’ art in the winter exhibition. Yuuri was analytical in the way he looked at the many paintings and drawings and mixed-media selections, finding things about them that Sara overlooked. His presence next to her was grounding, and she felt her anxieties over the night slowly begin to ebb with the flow of his commentary.

They stopped briefly by Isabella Yang’s oil paintings (several of which featuring a very familiar silhouette) to chat with her and JJ himself. Their attention quickly wound up on a sizable rock on Isabella’s left ring finger.

“Bella, is that…?”

“Oh my god,” Isabella said, pressing her left hand against her chest. “ _Yes_! JJ was going to wait until Christmas, but then he decided against it.”

JJ slung an arm around Isabella’s shoulders, puffing his chest out proudly. “Couldn’t help myself. It was supposed to be with all our families together, but Bella’s been supporting me for so long, and when she showed me all these paintings she did of me, it just felt right. Yeah, couldn’t wait,”

It was such a heartfelt thing to hear from JJ, who Sara usually regarded as a sort of narcissistic, that she was stunned into momentary silence. Isabella seemed to misconstrue this, and a small crease appeared between her perfectly shaped brows.

“I mean, I know we’re young, but we’ve dated for years, and spent so many summers at church camp and volunteering together, and I love his siblings like they’re my own, and I just can’t wait to be a Leroy,”

Sara caught her friend’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You don’t need to explain yourself, Bella. I’m so happy for you both, I was just thinking about how sweet what JJ said was.”

“Oh,” Isabella laughed, leaning back to look up at her fiance, “Yeah, he’s a big softie – I guess you wouldn’t imagine that, seeing him on the ice.”

Next to Sara, Yuuri snorted softly. He quickly covered it up with a dry cough, but Sara could still feel the tug of a grin at her lips. JJ wasn’t as imposing on the ice as Isabella would have people think, though he was a talented hockey player.

Isabella was continuing, though, “Yeah, it’s funny how people get when you paint them, even if they sat for them. Like, what did Mila say when she saw those big canvases you did of her?”

Sara froze. “The _what_?”

Isabella chuckled in an indulgent sort of way. “Those big paintings you did of Mila, what did she think of them?”

“She, uh,” Sara stuttered, mind reeling. _Those big paintings you did of Mila._ She dared a glance over her shoulder where her exhibition was set up. The center she’d displayed around, a 24×36 inch painting of the dream she’d had so often since the summer, stared back at her. It was the distance that made things clear.

She’d been painting Mila all along.

The words left Sara’s lips numbly, her mind working through fragments of those dreams and superimposing them with afternoons spent in Mila’s apartment or the Victory Garden. “Yeah, she loves them.”

And it was true.

Yuuri was grounding Sara, his hand on her arm as they said goodbye and started making their way back to Sara’s exhibition. Sara felt like a balloon, kept from floating away only by his presence.

“So you really didn’t know?” Yuuri’s voice was soft and the gallery was loud; Sara could’ve pretended she didn’t hear him.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Does it upset you?” He pressed. The teasing tone he’d used initially was gone.

Sara looked over at him, reading the clear concern in his deep brown eyes. _Well,_ does _it upset me?_ “No, not at all. Actually, it makes a lot of things clear to me. I’d been wondering why my subject was so... _mysterious_ yet so familiar,” she chuckled.

Yuuri smiled back at her. “Yes, I imagine that _would_ be something. I’m not quite sure Mila’s worked out that they’re her, either, though, to tell you the truth. I don’t think she sees herself as something so… ethereal.”

Sara worried at her bottom lip. “I don’t think I saw it at first, not on the surface. But something in me did. And I’m glad of that.”

There wasn’t anything Yuuri had to say to that. They made it back to Michele in amiable silence. He hadn’t minded their absence, and barely acknowledged them from the conversation he was apparently having with Emil on the phone.

When Chris did arrive, it was moments later with Mila and Viktor coming back from the wine and cheese. He marched straight over to Sara.

“Sara,” he hissed in a stage whisper, “ _who_ is that tall handsome man, the one with the _hair_?”

Sara followed the line of Chris’ arm (which was slightly outstretched behind him in a way he no doubt thought was subtle) to where one of her instructors was standing in a small knot, talking to a mixture of colleagues and students. The ‘one with the hair’ glanced up, feeling her gaze, and offered a polite smile. Sara returned it and looked back to Chris.

“Oh. That’s my design theory professor. He’s kinda funny, makes us call him by his first name so he doesn’t feel old.”

“ _Which is?_ ” Chris pressed, leaning so close that Sara could almost feel his stubble. Behind her, she could hear a muffled _oh my god_ from Yuuri.

Sara was fighting a laugh. “It’s Luca Carlisle.”

With Chris’ shirt unbuttoned just-too much, Sara had a great view of the deep, theatrically shuddery breath he took at that. Mila came up next to Sara, leaving the Katsuki-Nikiforovs talking to Michele. Sara wrapped her arm around Mila, resting her hand on the curve of Mila’s hip.

“Sounds Italian,” Mila commented nonchalantly, looking between Sara and Chris as she returned the hold Sara had on her.

Sara had mentioned this professor to Mila before; she knew the setup Mila was creating, and shot her a sidelong grin. “Oh, you know what, I _think_ he’s actually Swiss.”

Chris actually gasped this time. “ _Swiss_? Like _me_?”

Mila was flush against Sara’s side; her shrug moved them both. “I suppose so,”

Chris’ lip twitched, and Sara thought that if he wasn’t so besotted he might’ve told Mila off (in French, his favorite method of complaining). Viktor had wandered over at this point.

“A _teacher_ , Chris?” he asked with a smirk.

“Shut up, you _know_ it was bound to happen,” Chris hissed, batting a hand out to playfully shove Viktor away.

In that moment, a few things happened.

Viktor jumped back out of the way with the practiced skill of someone who had been doing so since college. That wasn’t surprising. But he _was_ holding a relatively full glass of wine – and he was standing adjacent to a small series of gouache and ink paintings Sara had done at the end of the summer when there were still flowers in the window boxes along Main Street. She watched, horrified, as a wave of wine headed toward her art like a tsunami.

And then it _wasn’t_.

For a moment, she swore the wine was suspended in mid-air between the rim of the glass and the uncovered cold-press paper mounted to the wall. Then, the wine was back in the glass like nothing had happened. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath – or, like Sara, couldn’t take in air at all. She turned her head, and there was Mila, her hand still up and slightly outstretched toward Viktor’s wine glass.

“ _Merde_ ,” Chris swore.

And like that, Sara could breathe again.

The apologies started then.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” Mila whispered. “Sara, I–”

“ _Yes_ , you should’ve,” Chris argued over Mila, his cheeks flushing bright under his dark stubble. “Otherwise, you’d have had to pull the wine out of the paper, and you _know_ that’s messy.”

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Viktor was saying, reaching for Mila, for Yuuri, for Sara, for anyone to touch. Sara pulled out of his range, though, and dropped her hold on Mila as well. She didn’t want to be clung to, she didn’t want apologies. What the _hell_ had just happened?

“ _Sara_ ,”

“No, I – no, sorry, I just,” Sara was stumbling over her words, her mind trying furiously to rationalize what she’d just seen. The air felt electrified; the hair on her arms was standing up. She took another step back, away from her friends. “I need to think.”

“Golubushka, it’s alright. It’s alright.”

Sara frowned. Why was Mila telling her it would be _alright_? She faced her fully, and then she could see the way the air was distorted around Mila’s fingertips the way heat is over a hot road. It made her head ache.

“Did you do that?” There was no use beating around the bush. Mila didn’t seem to think so, either; her answer was immediate.

“Yes.”

“You caught the wine, in midair, and returned it to the glass?”

“Yes, I did.”

Sara took a deep breath, hating when it made her shoulders shake. Mila reached for her, but held back from touching her. Maybe that was for the best.

“I think I should go.”

“Surely – Chris?” Viktor grabbed Chris by the sleeve and tugged him closer to Sara. “Chris can _help_ , Sara.”

Images flashed through Sara’s mind: snapshots of the way Chris could hold attention, the way people liked him. His position as a school counselor. She shivered again. She didn’t need anyone poking around in her mind. “I really don’t think so,” she said.

Viktor looked like he wanted to argue, but Yuuri was there, shouldering his husband back a little. “Leave it be, Vitya.”

Michele had come over by that time, his phone stowed in his pocket. “Is everything okay?” he asked, looking suspiciously between the Russians and Chris.

Sara didn’t want him to know what had happened, not yet. Not until she figured it out herself. But what if that never happened? She closed her eyes. “It’s okay, Mickey, I’ve just – I’ve got a migraine.”

“A migraine? Just all of a sudden?”

“I guess it’s all the bright light. Thought it was just a headache, but I don’t think so.” Even as she spoke, she could feel a headache starting to blossom in earnest behind her eyes as if she’d spoken it into existence. Wouldn’t _that_ be something?

“Oh. Is Mila taking you home?”

“No,” Sara said, too fast. She could feel Mila’s gaze on her. If she looked, would there be hurt in her eyes? Sara wouldn’t be able to bear that. She didn’t want to be hurting Mila, not when she cared so deeply for her. “I – I think it would just be best if you took me home. I need my big brother right now.”

Viktor and Yuuri were whispering furtively, so quiet Sara couldn’t even make out sounds resembling words. Chris was staring into his wine, occasionally glancing around in the design theory professor’s direction. And Mila – Mila was so still she could’ve been a statue.

“Al-alright, then,” Michele said, obvious surprise on his face. He started digging through his pockets for the car key.

“Thank you guys for coming,” Sara said, finally focusing on Yuuri. He dropped his conversation with Viktor immediately and gave Sara a small smile. “Any time, Sara.”

“I’m sorry you’re feeling unwell,” Viktor added, though he surely knew what the real issue was. Maybe it was what she’d just seen, maybe it was something she’d known all along and ignored, but Sara thought she was seeing that same kind of air-distortion around Viktor. The ends of his platinum hair seemed to float as if he were a Ghibli character. There was magic there – or _something_ , at least. Sara was out of her element.

Chris put his hand on Sara’s shoulder, and she stretched up to kiss his cheek goodbye. “Things really will be alright,” he whispered while she was still stretched up on her toes.

Sara stiffened against him, afraid of some manipulation of her mood. Would he do that, even when she’d said no? That _is_ what Viktor had called Chris for, right after it happened, wasn’t it?

“I’m not doing anything, _cherie_. I _wouldn’t_. You just get some rest, alright?” He removed his hand from her back, and she settled back down on her feet.

“Goodnight, Chris.”

That left Mila. She looked so pale, so suddenly young, standing a little away from the rest of them. To her horror, Sara saw tears brimming in her eyes. She’d never seen Mila cry.

“ _Tesoro_ ,” Sara began, slowly closing the distance between them. Her heels were just enough taller than Mila’s that she could raise her chin and press her lips against her forehead. There was that lip-numbing jolt of electricity that there sometimes was, and Sara almost laughed. Of _course_ there was. Mila pressed against her, comfortingly warm.

“I’m sorry I ruined your night,” Mila said into Sara’s black turtleneck.

Something fierce gripped Sara, and she pulled Mila closer to her. “No, Mila. You didn’t ruin anything. I just... need to think.”

Mila nodded, still tucked under Sara’s chin. “Okay,” she said, but she sounded suspiciously watery.

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon.” Mila echoed. She slowly released the grip she’d had on the waist of Sara’s trousers and raised her head. Sara’s chest ached, was absolutely screaming. Before she could think her way against it, she dropped a kiss onto Mila’s lips.

“Bye,”

“Goodbye, Sara.” Mila’s eyes were still closed, her lips were half-parted.

It felt like running away.

☾

  
  


Before bed, Sara got a text from Mila.

She’d been going through all of the motions getting ready for bed, stepping out of her big, billowy trousers and leaving them pooled on the floor. She took her makeup off, washed her face, even remembered the witch hazel tincture Yuuri had given her over the summer for evening her complexion. Now, the gesture had her wondering: _what more is there to this_?

Every motion, everything she did, brought a new question to her mind. It was all _how_ , and _why_ , and _what next_. Who else knew? What all was there to know?

She tried to select something neutral to play on her speakers while she put lotion on and combed her hair out. Every song, every artist, in her recent playlists made her think of Mila. And they should, she mentally argued, because Mila was her girlfriend – but what _else_ was Mila?

Sara knew Michele could hear her pacing around downstairs. The house was old, and the floorboards creaked sometimes just from drafts. She tried to force herself to calm her racing thoughts, tried to get her emotions under control. It was out of her hands, was what it was, be it for better or for worse. She was repeating that mantra to herself when she finally sank down onto her bed to pantomime sleep and noticed her phone for the first time since getting home.

Her lock screen was a selfie where Mila was planting a sloppy kiss to her cheek. There were a few notification bubbles across their faces, one from Yuuri and Viktor each, two from Chris, and some of them with Mila’s name. Sara’s stomach rose and fell like she was on a rollercoaster. It had been a while since she felt like that, so out of control in such a desperate way.

Sara thought she took a while to deliberate opening the message, but really there was no waiting. With shaking fingers, she opened the thread from Mila. There was more than one, but just reading the first made her breath catch in her chest

  
  


**22:23** **💗** **MILA** **❣️** **:** I’m sorry

 **22:24** **💗** **MILA** **❣️** **:** none of that should’ve happened. it was a combination of us acting like idiots and not being mindful of where we were, and we jeopardized your art, which is so lovely and so important

  
  


Sara thought of what to say to that. Yes, they had all been acting goofy, but they were a group of friends who loved each other. Viktor and Christophe were always chaotic to a degree. It was the… _magic_ , Mila’s magic, that had saved the day. It almost seemed funny to apologize for it.

There was another message, a longer one. Sara had been keeping her eyes averted. Long messages after tense situations always seemed to be a bad sign.

  
  


**22:27** **💗** **MILA** **❣️** **:** there’s a reason I never said anything about this shit that I can do and it’s because I didn’t want to scare you away. I know it’s freaky and it’s not natural but I swear I’d never hurt you and me acting like a dumbass tonight doesn’t support that well but. sara you mean so much to me. I’m so sorry. and I think you like me too. but if this changes your mind about me I’ll understand.

  
  


☾

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a little angst that's not driven from Michele :0
> 
> I hope you all are done with your winter finals and have passed with flying colors!!


	7. We're Under Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara and Mila come clean to one another, with some help from Yuuri and the Plisetskys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas Eve!! Have some communication and conflict resolution ❣️

There was snow on the skylight over her bed when Sara woke in the morning. _Snow? I guess it finally stuck._ Her first thought was to retrieve her phone and text Mila about it – but then the events at the gallery the night before came tumbling back to her. Remembering wasn’t like a sucker punch, but that ache in her chest was back all the same. Sara settled back against her pillows, withdrawing from where she’d half-emerged from her pile of blankets in search of her phone.

It was early enough that none of her alarms had gone off yet; the world around her was silent and gray. Mila hadn’t sent any more messages.

Thinking about possibly ending their relationship made Sara’s throat feel closed. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t _bear_ it. Was that what Mila wanted? Was that what would be best? How did they move forward?

So much of her wanted to put on Julien Baker’s discography, add a blanket to the bed, and stay there for the day. Maybe dig out Richard Siken’s _Crush_ and really go to town. Screw figuring out the implications of what she’d seen – she deserved some time to wallow, didn’t she? Part of her wanted to call her mom. But how would that conversation go? _‘Mama, I think my girlfriend is a witch.’ ‘Sara, why do you think your friend is mean?’_

Either way, there really wasn’t time for some Bella Swan level rumination. When Sara’s alarm went off, she had to drag herself out of bed and get ready for work. School may have finished for the semester, but she had plenty of shifts to pull before the end of the year. Downstairs, Sara heard Michele’s phone going off, and hers quickly followed suit. With a heavy sigh, she pushed her bedding back and stretched across her bed to the table where her phone was loudly playing an electronic song Emil had turned her on to.

The day had begun.

  
  


**☾**

  
  


Yuuri came by Bennet’s toward the end of Sara’s shift. She’d somewhat expected him to – not to see _her_ , but because there was a box in the storeroom with his name on it. There weren’t any other customers in the store. Yuuri waited patiently by the counter while Sara went off to retrieve the box. Inside were three hardcover books he’d ordered, all pertaining in some way to theater or dance.

“Are you and Viktor thinking of changing professions?” Sara joked lightly as she started ringing them up.

Yuuri smiled, dimples showing in his round cheeks. “No, thanks, we’re happy with the plants. These are for a family friend, you may have heard his name – Georgi? He’s… well, he’s one of Yakov’s godchildren, just as Viktor, Yurio, and Mila are.”

Sara blinked. “Oh.”

Yuuri seemed determined not to get flustered in the obvious discomfort lingering from the night before. It was forced nonchalance. “Yeah, Georgi’s birthday is the day after Viktor’s, the twenty-sixth. They all try to get together around the Winter Solstice. Yakov’s flying in at the end of the week.”

Bits and pieces of past conversations were coming back to Sara. “Do I remember correctly that Georgi lives in Manhattan, though?”

“Yes!” Yuuri said brightly. “He’s at the American Ballet Theatre, it keeps him pretty busy. When he’s not dancing, he’s entertaining the crazy thought of getting into acting. They – that is, Georgi and Viktor – grew up dancing together in St. Petersburg. When the opportunities arose, though, Viktor decided to pursue biology and Georgi decided to keep dancing.”

Sara smiled. It was so easy to talk to Yuuri, so easy to put all her misgivings aside. “How wonderful. He sounds like quite a character.”

“He really is. You know, in spite of all that affinity for dance and theater, he’s turned out the _straightest_ of all of Yakov’s godchildren. Really, there’s always some woman who’s caught his eye and heart all in one go. You’ll meet him, you know, at the Solstice,” there was a short pause, in which Yuuri’s cheeks flushed brightly, and he added, “if you decide to come, of course.”

“I – I didn’t know I was invited.” Sara wanted to chew on her lip, but she was afraid she’d bloody it on accident. Everything was raw in the worst way from the night before.

“I thought Mila’d mentioned it. She – she’s been talking about bringing you, anyway.”

A shiver crept down Sara’s spine. Solstices had a new meaning to her today. “Yuuri, I know this… probably isn’t my place,”

He studied her face, waiting for her to continue. Normally, his eyes were a russet brown, not so dark; now, his pupils seemed to melt away into liquid chocolate irises. You could get lost there.

And it was hard to find the right words to say. “I guess I’m just… are they all… are all of _you_ … like Mila?”

Yuuri, to Sara’s immense surprise and relief, gave her another small smile. “It’s alright, Sara. No, it’s not all of us. _I’m_ perfectly normal, you know.”

Sara snorted in spite of the situation. _As if_ Katuski Yuuri was perfectly normal in _any_ respect. She told him so, adding, “You know, I’ve always thought you were special, ever since high school.”

Yuuri was blushing brilliantly. “You sound like Viktor. I swear, though, there’s nothing _interesting_ about me. Not like… well, not like Viktor, and not like the rest of them.”

Of course, Yuuri had to go and pull a face like he’d said something he shouldn’t have when Sara was as in the dark as ever. The absurdity of the situation was getting to her a little. She shoved her hair back over her shoulder and straightened her back, “Well, apparently _anything_ is possible,” she said with just too much of an edge to her voice.

For a second, they both held their breath. Then, Yuuri did the unthinkable and nodded. “Something like that. It takes some getting used to – even _I_ don’t understand all of it. But Sara?”

“Yeah?” Sara sounded pathetic, just in that word. How had she dared to lash out at Yuuri, of all people? He was trying to help her and she was being a dick.

He reached out and put his hand on Sara’s arm. “Go talk to Mila. I can’t say it’ll make everything better, but I think it will help.”

“You’re right, of course. Thank you, Yuuri.”

“Of course, Sara.”

“It’s… it’s just hard to begin.”

“I know,” Yuuri said.

There was something sad about the way he said it; Sara remembered with a little jolt that Yuuri had to have gone through the same thing whenever he learned about whatever power Viktor possessed. How had that gone, how long ago had it been?

“You’ll figure it out, Sara.”

  
  


**☾**

  
  


Sara had texted Michele, and he responded without any questions, just asking her to be safe. Of course, he was blissfully ignorant of what had happened at the gallery while he’d been on the phone. He probably always would be. Sara couldn’t even imagine how that conversation might go.

The walk from Bennet’s to the Plisetsky Bakery wasn’t too long. The snow from the morning was still sticking, and from the look of the heavy clouds on the horizon, they were in for more. It crunched pleasantly underfoot, Sara stepping carefully even in her heavy-treaded boots to not slip. This snow still seemed quite fresh, not yet dulled a dirty gray or stomped into mud.

When she was standing at the mouth of the alleyway that held the stairs up to Mila’s apartment, though, Sara felt her forward momentum stall out. _Maybe I should text, make sure she’s there_ , she thought to herself. But Sara had memorized Mila’s schedule a while ago, now, and she was almost perfectly certain Mila was home. _What am I going to say? s_ he fretted, tugging at her gloves.

“Oi.”

Sara jumped in spite of herself. Yuri Plisetsky was hanging out the back door of the bakery, making a face at her. “Oh. Hi, Yurio.”

Even with the distance between them, she clocked the dramatic eye-roll he gave at the nickname. “Come on.”

“What?”

Another eye-roll. Was it even conscious at this point? “You’ll freeze to death out there. Not exactly _Siberian_ , are you?”

“I guess not,” Sara muttered, and she walked across the snow and through the back door.

She’d been in the bakery several times since moving to Eidolon, but never in the back. There were a few people who worked there besides Nikolai and occasionally Yuri, though from what she understood, Nikolai liked to do the bulk of the work himself. She expected to see the kitchen bustling with activity, but there was only Nikolai at one of the counters, kneading a great ball of dough.

“Slow day,” he commented, as if reading her mind. Perhaps he _was_ – Sara didn’t know the extent of the powers Viktor’s family had, and she didn’t know who exactly possessed them.

“It snowed, finally,” Sara said dumbly.

The briefest of smiles cracked Nikolai’s stony face. Did he like the snow, the cold? “Yes. Long overdue. There’s going to be more.”

Yuri sidled around Sara to the coffee maker pushed into one of the corners. He shot a look over his shoulder at her. “Coffee?”

“I – no, I really shouldn’t stay too long.”

He shrugged like he didn’t care, and maybe he really didn’t. It was hard to read the kid sometimes. With his back still to her as he went about fixing his coffee, Yuri said, “You’re going up to see her.”

It wasn’t a question, just a flat statement. He might as well have made a comment about the color of the sky. Sara pursed her lips before answering. “Yes, that’s what I was planning on.”

No longer able to use the coffee to avoid facing Sara, Yuri turned around and pushed himself up onto the countertop. Nikolai said something in an undertone to him in Russian, but Yuri didn’t budge. The way he sat with his legs crossed and a coffee cup in hand reminded Sara of a therapist you might see on TV.

“Be… careful.”

Immediately, Sara felt the hairs on her arms rise. The way the air had gone staticky around Mila’s fingertips in the gallery came back to her. “Is it dangerous?”

“ _No_ ,” Yuri snapped, as if Sara was stupid to even suggest that. “I mean _you_ don’t hurt _her_.”

A spark of tension came to life behind Sara’s eyes. Was this gangly teenager really trying to give her a shovel talk? “Yurio, no offense, but really–”

“I think,” Nikolai cut in with his even, deep voice, “what Yurotchka is trying to say is that he is worried you may be feeling the same confusion and fear Mila is, and he doesn’t want _anyone_ to get hurt.”

Sara didn’t quite know what to say to that. She was reminded of the conversation she’d had just hours earlier with Yuuri, the way he’d asked her to just talk to Mila – the way they’d danced around giving a name to whatever had happened, to what kind of power there might be. Sara wasn’t dumb, she could think for herself, but she wanted just this once for someone to spell things out for her.

“ _I_ don’t want to hurt _her_ ,” Sara said, the words tumbling out before she could think of keeping them to herself.

Nikolai dipped his head just-so to meet her gaze from the other side of the kitchen. What hair that wasn’t gray from age was dark instead of blond, but he had the same bright, jewel toned blue-green eyes his grandsons did. Sure, Yuri had jade eyes and Viktor’s were aquamarine, but there was no mistaking the resemblance, not paired with knife’s edge intensity.

“I don’t think you will, Sara.”

Yuri had watched the exchange over the top of his mug. He set the coffee aside now, leaning close to Sara. “So do you have a plan?”

Sara almost took a step back in spite of herself. “Do I _need_ one?”

Yuri wrinkled his nose. “I guess not.”

“Here,”

Sara looked over to Nikolai, who had brought out a wrapped loaf of bread. Yuri made a noise of approval to her left, nodding.

“What –”

“It’s Borodinsky bread,” Yuri said with a shrug. “I think it reminds her of home – well, of Russia. It’s a...” he trailed off, looking to his grandfather for the right words. Nikolai only gazed impassively back at his grandson, so Yuri finished, “... _Russian_ thing. I don’t like it too much, especially not with cilantro in it, but everyone who grew up there goes nuts for it.”

One corner of Nikolai’s mouth raised in a half-smile. “Yurotchka forgets that some people have more varied palettes than teenagers who grow up in America.”

Yuri wrinkled his nose, and if it wasn’t his grandfather who’d said that, Sara thought he might’ve stuck his tongue out. It made her want to smile, to laugh, to pretend this was a normal conversation – as if they weren’t dancing around a subject she didn’t know how to begin to comprehend.

Nikolai held the loaf out for Sara to take. “I wouldn’t be so worried, Sara,” he said.

His accent wasn’t right, and her dad had never grown a beard, but the softer tone he took made her feel like she was a child again, asking for her worries being soothed just like that, with the words of someone older and wiser. And really, she was only twenty-two. How could she be expected to have the world figured out?

Sara took the loaf and murmured her thanks, reaching for her purse with her free hand. Nikolai shook his head.

“Not today, Sara. Just let me know what you think of it, hmm?”

“Thank you, Mr. Plisetsky. One of these days, though, you’ll have to let me pay.”

Nikolai gave her a look that clearly said ‘we’ll see about that’ and shooed her away with his hands.

“Dedushka and I are going home after six, so if you need a ride home or something come down before then.” Yuri said, darting a glance at his grandfather for confirmation and taking a sip of his coffee.

 _If something goes wrong and Mila can’t – or won’t – take you_ , Sara supplied mentally. She pursed her lips and nodded. “Thank you,” she said again.

And all that was left was to go and see Mila herself.

Back into the cold and up the back stairs. What was she even going to say? The weight of the loaf of bread was comfortable and grounding; Sara found that she was holding it in front of her chest like one might hold a shield.

Sara only gave a few raps to the door. How many times over the last few weeks had she knocked on Mila’s door, going until Mila opened it? Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. There was a long moment where Sara thought that Mila might leave her out in the cold. She wanted to turn and go back down the stairs, even when realistically she hadn’t given Mila a chance. And then Mila was staring back at her, cast in shadows from the setting winter sun.

“Hi, Sara,”

“Mila,” Sara breathed. It had only been a day, but seeing Mila after not talking to her since the night before was like a tall glass of water on a hot day. Sara had butterflies every time their eyes met, and tonight was no exception.

“Do you wanna come in?”

Sara started a little, jolting out of her thoughts. “Oh, yes, if it’s alright. And, uh, this is for you.”

Mila took the loaf of bread from Sara, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, I _love_ this stuff. Is it from Kolya?”

“Yeah, they both said you liked it,”

“I do. Thanks, Sara,”

Sara wanted her to call her by a pet name, she wanted to throw her arms around her, she wanted to kiss her – _oh_ , she wanted to kiss her. Instead, she shut the front door behind her and toed off her boots and pulled her gloves off in the entryway. Mila walked ahead to the kitchen and Sara wandered to the table where she normally left her purse or backpack. _It’s hard to begin._ Sara closed her eyes for a heartbeat. The speaker in the back of the apartment was playing Nick Cave.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Mila asked, appearing in the rounded doorway of the kitchen. Sara’s gaze flickered up to the herbs hanging there. Everywhere, she was seeing things she’d noticed but never really understood.

“No, I don’t wanna be a bother. Thanks, though.”

“I’ve just been doing chores. Picking up, I guess. I was going to do the dishes.”

Sara understood what wasn’t said – Mila liked to occupy her hands when she had something on her mind. She didn’t like to stew idly in her thoughts.

Mila continued, “There’s just a random playlist going on the speakers. You’re welcome to put something else on, if you want. My phone’s in the living room.”

That, too, Sara understood. Mila was trying to gauge if Sara was staying or if she was just popping in. _That’s a good question_. Without waiting for an answer, though, Mila turned and went back into the kitchen. The sink turned on. Sara, feeling dismissed, wandered down the hall. She stepped lightly; it was silly, but she wanted Mila to wonder if she’d moved at all.

Mila’s phone was sitting on the couch, looking like it’d been flung aside. Sara unlocked it without thinking much about it, ignoring the texts written in Russian from Yuri. Part of her wanted to pop on a Radiohead song for an ultimately moody setting, but Sara knew better. Instead, she put on an older band that came up relatively often on Mila’s playlists, the Jesus And Mary Chain, and made her way back up the hall. _Hey, honey, what you trying to say? As I stand here, don't you walk away, and the world comes tumbling down._

She stood there in her socks, giving up and biting her lip after being so good about leaving it alone all day. The iron-salt taste of blood did nothing to make her feel any better. Mila was still in the kitchen, the clatter of dishes and rush of water attesting that she wasn’t just giving Sara the cold shoulder. And if Sara thought about it, thought about the way she’d reacted when Mila saved her painting from being splashed with wine, she found she might _deserve_ that cold shoulder.

The words tumbled out of her accidentally, in a rush, and they left Sara herself agape. “So… you’re a witch?”

After a moment, Mila popped her head around the corner. She’d left the sink running; the sound of water rushing through the faucet was white noise filling the air.

“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that. Did you say ‘witch’ or ‘bitch’?” Sara opened her mouth to clarify, but Mila twisted her lips in a considering way, like Sara had asked her some simple question of preference. “I suppose I could say yes to both, really,”

Sara pursed her lips. This wasn’t the time for mirth, not really, and yet she couldn’t help the aching fondness she felt when Mila made stupid jokes like that.

“You’re not a bitch.” Sara said, perhaps too soft to be heard, but Mila was gone.

It seemed she had returned to the dishes, unconcerned about the effect her words might’ve had. But after a moment, she called, “Are you scared?”

Sara considered that for a moment. _Was_ she scared? Mila had always been somewhat intimidating to her, but she’d never been downright scary. Just saying she was a witch didn’t change that, did it? “No, I’m not scared.”

“Good, do you want anything in your tea?”

 _I told her not to bother, but is there any point in arguing?_ “Honey, please.”

Mila popped her head back around the doorway. “Why don’t you come in and help me? I feel weird with you out there.”

A smile twitched briefly onto Sara’s lips. Mila looked so earnest. “Okay.”

Mila’s kitchen was, in a lot of ways, a copy of the bakery kitchen below – just much more colorful and less polished. The cabinets were painted emerald green; the floor was original 1920s black-and-white tile. Mila was by the sink, pulling jars of loose tea down from the cabinets. It was obvious she was giving Sara space.

“Do you want to grab some plates? I thought we could cut into the Borodinsky, maybe.”

Sara walked over to the cabinet she remembered plates being in and pulled two down. The plates Mila had were a combination of two different sets of floral patterned everyday wear. Sometimes they ended up cycled through the dishwasher to be in the cabinet in their own sets, but more often than not it was a colorful hodgepodge.

Mila had gotten out a heavy wooden cutting board from against the stove top while the tea steeped in (again, mismatched) mugs. The loaf of Borodinsky bread wasn’t too large, maybe about the size of a round sourdough loaf Sara’s mother might’ve brought home from a bodega when they all lived in Middle Village. It cut smoothly, revealing bread as dark brown as the slightly glossy crust.

Mila hummed appreciatively. “Kolya is the only person on this side of the world, I think, who can make this right. I think he uses some old standard recipe instead of the government one, but he won’t tell. What Americans don’t get about good rye bread, I’ll never understand.”

Sara was smiling, just listening to Mila talk about something she obviously loved. It struck her that she didn’t know all too much about Mila’s life before moving to Eidolon.

“Yurio mentioned something about cilantro?”

“Cil– ugh, you mean _coriander_. I went and learned English only to find that Americans switched words around without telling the rest of the world, how rude is that?”

Sara giggled, and when Mila looked up from fussing with slicing the bread, she was smiling, too. It made Sara’s chest ache.

“He’s right, though. There’s ground coriander and molasses in Borodinsky, which for some reason is a combination _kotonok_ turns his nose up at.”

“Well, I’m game to try it,” Sara said. Why had her voice gone so wobbly? She was just listening to Mila talk about _bread_.

Mila brought out a butter dish and offered it first to Sara. “When I was little, we always had schmaltz on our Borodinsky, and sometimes with chive blossoms or lilacs, but this is easier.”

Sara didn’t even know what schmaltz _was_ , but she buttered one of the stacks of bread slices dutifully and handed the knife over to Mila.

“Do you want to sit in the living room? I’ll be right there, I promise.”

Sara studied Mila’s furrowed brow. They were both being so cautious it hurt. “Yeah, sure. Let me take your plate, too, and you bring the tea. Okay?”

“Okay,” Mila’s voice had almost disappeared into a whisper, but she had a little light in her eyes, and Sara’s stomach unclenched a little.

For once, the coffee table wasn’t scattered with books or papers. Sara set the mismatched plates down and curled into her usual spot on the sofa to wait for Mila. She’d always loved the way Mila had wrapped the room in colors, in art and textiles. _Maybe one day I’ll have a Sara Crispino original for my wall_ – that’s what Mila had said to her the first time she’d invited Sara inside. Just thinking back to it gave Sara butterflies. Mila was always doing that, always making her feel bursts of emotion.

“Hmm, you know, I didn’t think you were really into The Jesus And Mary Chain,” Mila said as she walked in, a patterned mug in each hand.

“No?” Sara asked instead of telling her she’d specifically picked a band she knew Mila liked.

“No, aren’t you more of a… I don’t know, Sufjan Stevens kinda girl?”

As she spoke his name, the speakers abruptly switched from the last notes of _Just Like Honey_ to the opening of _John My Beloved_. It was too quick to simply be the end of one song and the natural beginning of another. In spite of herself, Sara flinched – and immediately regretted it, watching Mila’s face crumple, though she was obviously working to keep her face blank.

“No, no, don’t be upset!” Sara rushed to say, reaching out to Mila.

Mila moved slowly, like she was approaching a scared animal, as she set the tea down by the buttered bread. She didn’t take her eyes off Sara’s.

“It’s just,” Sara whispered, “you know, _Sufjan_. I’ll cry.”

“What would you prefer?” Mila whispered back, folding herself down onto the couch to sit against the other arm, eyes still on Sara. She moved like a dancer, like a predator, all careful lines and taut muscles.

“Um,” Sara cleared her throat as casually as she could, as if she wasn’t fighting the urge to sob. She thought of the way they’d danced every now and then when Viktor and Yuuri were away from the Victory Garden. “The Strokes?”

Sufjan’s singing melted, slower than before, into Julian Casablancas. Mila was searching Sara’s face for a reaction.

_I don't want to waste your time_

_I just want to say_

“You had us celebrate the birthday of this record in October.” Sara said. She was searching Mila’s face, too. She wished they were swaying to the song, bodies flush so every roll of hips was in tandem, so their spines aligned as they swayed.

_I've got to say_

_We worked hard, darling_

Mila smiled demurely, and Sara could almost see the tension melt out of her shoulders. “It’s not every day that an album turns fifteen.”

_We don't have no control_

_We're under control_

“Thank you for saving my painting last night.”

Mila’s gaze flickered down to her hands, which seemed to have a faint bluish glow, if Sara’s eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Sara reached for a glowing hand. There was something fierce in her chest coming to life at the way Mila deflated like that, like she’d done something wrong. “You didn’t scare me. You saved my painting. I’m so grateful.”

“You had to leave,” Mila argued, though it sounded more self-deprecating than anything. There was a rush beneath her skin, like an electric current too far away to shock but close enough to deter.

“Not because of you, Mila. I needed to _think_. This is… this is new to me, to say the least.”

Mila wrinkled her nose like she might argue that it _wasn’t_ that new – and if she did, she might have had a point. Just because Sara hadn’t expressly noticed these things didn’t mean they hadn’t been happening around her for months – years, maybe, if she really pushed her mind. Maybe it was always there.

“And I want to know about it, I want to learn – but Mila, I want to know about you. I want to _know_ you. I feel like all this time I haven’t, I’ve just been talking about myself. I didn’t know this big piece of your life. And I want to.”

Were those tears at the corners of Mila’s dark blue eyes? She gave Sara a watery smile and squeezed her fingers. “Okay. Okay, golubushka. Let’s start with the bread.”

  
  


**☾**

  
  


The volume was low now, but the speakers were still working through the Strokes discography. Sara and Mila were still curled into mirroring shapes on their ends of the sofa. They’d eaten the bread (it was good – sweet and slightly sour, pleasantly interesting to eat) and Mila had just come back with fresh mugs of tea. They were back to talking magic – _magic!_ – and Siberia, where Mila was born and grew up before moving to St. Petersburg as a pre-teen.

The question came to Sara suddenly, in the midst of Mila relating an anecdote about how she’d learned to change the frequencies of the radio when she was a child specifically to irritate her grandmother.

“Was it magic?”

“Was what magic? The… the radio?”

Sara bit her lip. _What if it was?_ “With Mickey. Getting him to leave me alone and stop being so overbearing.”

Mila held Sara’s gaze steadily, her blue eyes suddenly sharp. “You’re asking if I influenced his mind? If I manipulated his behavior and have continued to do so?”

“I – yes, I guess so.” Sara didn’t like the edge in Mila’s voice, couldn’t help feeling like she’d insulted her in a way she couldn’t comprehend. But to her surprise, Mila reached out and laced her fingers with Sara’s.

“It’s not a simple thing, but in short, _no_. There was magic involved, that is true. I’m sure you figured as much.”

Sara thought of the leather parcel Makkachin had brought over, of the list of things Sara had dictated and Mila had written with that odd pen. _So that’s magic._ Slowly, she nodded.

“I put my intent on to that page – for you to succeed. But it was your will that made those words strong. I couldn’t have manipulated your brother through that page, and moreover, I _wouldn’t_ have. But I lent you some strength, it’s true. And things worked out, yes?”

Sara stroked her thumb over the back of Mila’s hand. “It did. Thank you, Mila.”

Mila smiled. “So _much_ of it was you, you know. You’re stronger than you know.”

**☾**  
  


It was dark outside, and had been for a while. Sara was surprised to look at her phone and find missed messages. She shot a considering glance in Mila’s direction.

“Don’t look at me,” Mila said with a shrug, “I didn’t do anything to make your phone silent, if that’s what you were thinking.”

Sara almost snorted. “No, I know, I’ve just been so caught up in _you_ ,”

Mila dropped an obliging peck onto Sara’s lips, as Sara’d hoped she would.

It was icy cold even though it wasn’t snowing and it was only ice that crunched underfoot as they walked hand-in-hand to Mila’s car. Sara sat as close to Mila as she could in the passenger seat. Mila watched her squirming to get closer and smirked. When the car rumbled to life, so did the CD in the stereo – Bob Dylan. _She takes just like a woman, yeah she does. She makes love like a woman, yeah she does._

“Blonde On Blonde?” Sara guessed, because that was the only Bob Dylan record she was sure she knew the name of.

Mila flashed her canines. “That’s the album, the song is Just Like A Woman. You’re only guessing that because _I’ve got ‘Blonde On Blonde’ on my portable stereo…_ ,” she sang.

“Look at you, queen of the nineties,” Sara said, poking Mila’s shoulder.

“I mean, how many other songs does Nada Surf have?” Mila asked with a shrug, flipping the CD off and plugging her phone into the AUX converter rigged up to work with the old car. The sound was tinny at first, but evened out as Mila pulled out from her parking place. The Velvet Underground came crooning through the speakers, replacing Bob Dylan in a much more mundane way than Mila telekinetically changing songs had been.

“I think they have enough to take offense at that,” Sara said without any heat. Mila smiled, softer this time.

They didn’t talk for a long while, the silence comfortable and easy.

When the streets started turning into Sara’s neighborhood, Mila spoke up again. She asked, “Are you going to Italy for Christmas?”

Sara’s mind flashed to her earlier conversation with Yuuri, and she had to press down on a smile. “No. My parents are going on some sort of cruise. They let Mickey and I know last week. I guess I forgot to mention it.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Mila said. She did not sound sorry to hear that.

“Yeah, it’s crummy but we’ll live. They might come visit in the spring, or vice versa.” Sara tried to catch Mila’s eye but couldn’t.

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” she agreed, nodding so her bob bounced in Sara’s periphery.

The silence was back, which would’ve been fine if the house wasn’t around the corner. Sara knew she couldn’t rush Mila, but oh, how she wanted to.

“Viktor’s turning ancient this month, you know,” Mila said, which isn’t what Sara had been expecting.

She said, “Oh?”

“I think he’s gonna be thirty or something. Maybe not _thirty_ , but up there.”

“That explains the gray hair.”

That got a snicker out of Mila, releasing the tension that had been inadvertently growing in the car. “ _Platinum_ – he’ll cry if he hears anyone say otherwise.”

Feeling bold, and seeing her front door in view, Sara reached out and put her hand on Mila’s thigh. “So, Viktor’s got a birthday. And?”

Mila wrinkled her nose. “Well, my cousin Georgi does, too, the day after. It’s Christmas, but half of us are Jewish, so that’s not the big celebration. But we always get together – and our godfather comes in from Russia, and it’s all right in time for the Solstice, and I want you to be there.”

The words had all tumbled out, faster and closer together as they came along. Sara blinked. She blinked again and felt her face stretching into a smile.

“You want me to meet your family?”

“No, I – _yes_ , I want you to meet my family.” Mila said, her eyes big and earnest in the faint glow cast by the porch light.

“Really?” Sara pressed, smiling so hard she felt tears in the corners of her eyes. No, maybe the tears were from something else. Was it always going to be this full of emotion, this bright on-the-edge existence with Mila?

Mila scooped Sara’s hand off her thigh to bring to her lips and cover in smacking kisses. “Yes, yes, yes, I do. I want you to be there, and I want you to see this part of my life.”

Sara used her hand in Mila’s to pull their bodies close together over the console. “Then I’ll be there, _tesoro_. God, I can’t wait!”

Mila’s face split into a wide, relieved smile. She kissed Sara’s ear, her cheekbone, her forehead, and her nose. “You’re the bees knees, lyubov.”

“You too, but I want a real kiss before I go,” Sara laughed.

She got what she wanted – who would Mila be to refuse?

  
  


Mickey was in the kitchen when Sara finally made her way into the house. He raised his eyebrows at his twin from behind the newspaper.

“You feeling better today?” he asked. It took Sara a moment to remember her purported migraine the night before.

“Much.”

  
  


**☾**

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm behind in my posting schedule, I so wanted to have the solstice chapter up for the actual solstice but alas, here we are. That being said, let me know your thoughts down below.


	8. Before The Sun Rises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to celebrate the Winter Solstice, with the help of Viktor and Mila's extended family members.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's some sexual content in this chapter but without detail (it's vague enough to be T)

  
  


Sara was free from needing drawings to turn in for class, but she still made her way to The Victory Garden over the rest of the week. She’d also picked up a few extra shifts at Bennett’s, which was helpful because she had suddenly realized how close the holiday was and how many gifts she needed to procure. All day, she was ringing up books for Hanukkah or Christmas, cutting her fingers on wrapping paper, and making small talk with her harried, pink-cheeked neighbors.

By that time, word had already spread to Viktor and Yuuri (and Yuri and Nikolai and Chris and somehow even Otabek) that she’d be coming along to the Solstice celebration. The excitement thrummed between all of them with each heartbeat that sounded like _friends, family, friends, family_. It was like some great exercise in belonging.

Chris came by the bookstore that busy Saturday morning, bringing with him a flurry of snow, the sharp smell of his cologne, and a stubbly kiss for Sara’s cheek. There wasn’t a line at the register yet, so he posted himself up against the counter.

“Sara!” he drawled, propping his head on his hand, “You didn’t tell me Luca is from the exact same region of Switzerland that my aunt is from!”

Sara blinked. “Chris, I don’t even – what region of Switzerland is your aunt from?”

Chris smiled. “Oh, thank you for asking, _mon cher_! Now, the Giacomettis are originally from the Italian region….”

She let herself get swept up in his monologue. It was like nothing had changed, but everything had – all in the best way. It was hard to keep from grinning like a loon, even after Chris left the store.

  
  


**☾**

  
  


Yakov arrived the day before the Solstice. He was staying with the Plisetskys; Georgi was arriving the next morning and staying with Viktor and Yuuri. It was his arrival that had Sara feeling the most on edge.

“What do I call him? Yakov? Mr _._ Feltsman? _Mr_. Yakov?” Sara asked Yuuri over a coffee break that morning.

Yuuri chuckled. “You sound like I did before meeting him. He doesn’t bite, you know. Well, not terribly.”

“ _Yu-uri_ ,” Sara wheedled, flicking an empty sugar packet at him.

“And now you sound like my husband,” Yuuri said, wrinkling his nose at her. “Really, there’s no need to worry. Calling him ‘Yakov’ should be fine, but if you feel more comfortable with a different option, go with that. You and I will probably be his favorite people present.”

Sara scoffed. “He’s literally flying in from Russia for Viktor and Georgi!”

Yuuri was laughing again. “You’ll see.”

  
  


Yakov was a shortish, balding man with dishwater-gray hair a bit longer than it should’ve been. His blue eyes were droopy like a hound dog’s. He was round, but in the way that belied former athleticism. He reminded her a little bit of Mikhail Baryshnikov, if Baryshnikov had gone a bit to seed. When Sara met him, he was still in an overcoat from travel but had removed his bowler hat.

In full earshot of her godfather, Mila said to Sara, “His English isn’t too incredible, even though he danced internationally, because he refuses to do linguistics magic. So if he says something strange, don’t hold it against him.”

Yuri snorted into his hand at that, and a bright, raised-eyebrow smile spread across Viktor’s face behind Yakov’s back. Yakov, to his credit, turned a lovely shade of puce and scowled at Mila.

“What Mila is forgetting is that some of us like to do things the old fashioned way,” he said, glowering from under his eyebrows.

Viktor put his hands on Yakov’s shoulders and leaned around him. “That, and none of us have a knack for language like Mila does – it’s all those drills Great Aunt Olga did with her, I bet.”

Yakov started grumbling something in Russian for Viktor’s benefit, but Yuri was louder. “Hey, I don’t even _know_ Olga and my language skills are pretty good.”

Yuuri reached out to ruffle Yuri’s hair, making it into a spectacular blond bird’s nest. “I don’t think they mean the same kind of language skills as being able to swear in seven languages, kiddo.”

Mila flashed Sara one of her devilish, canine-bearing grins. “So Sara, this is Yakov,”

Yakov bodily shook Viktor off of his shoulders and extended a hand to Sara. “Yakov Feltsman,” he said to her.

“Sara Crispino,” Sara said automatically, taking his hand. It was large and rough around hers, and she could feel pinpricks of what she thought must be magic tucked into the callouses.

He nodded brusquely before turning away. It wasn’t an exact dismissal; Makkachin had lumbered over and put his paws up on Yakov’s back. The dog, naturally, got a warmer greeting than any of them. Yuri appeared to be documenting his godfather ruffling the poodle’s fluffy ears, holding his phone at an awkward angle to keep it out of Yakov’s eyeline.

Sara raised an eyebrow at Mila, silently asking if she’d done alright. Mila’s eyes were crinkled at the corners even though she didn’t wear an exact smile, and she nodded. Across the room, Yuuri gave Sara a small nod of his own. It was such a simple thing, but the reassurance gave Sara a great deal of relief.

Together, Mila and Sara made their way through the knot of people in the open kitchen entrance area and into the living room. The whole apartment smelled like Christmas, thanks to the all the fir trees in the shop below. Every time someone came up the stairs into the kitchen, they brought a cloud of pine aroma with them. Vicchan trotted after them, evidently not as keen on visiting as Makkachin. When they collapsed together on the green sofa, Mila scooped him up and plopped him on their laps. He wore a holiday collar patterned with present boxes.

“So what do you think?” Mila asked, wrinkling her nose and smiling. “He’s like I said, no?”

Sara considered what Mila had told her about her godfather and the man himself standing just meters away in the kitchen. “Yeah, pretty much. I thought he would be bigger, I guess, the way you talk about him sometimes.”

Mila shrugged. “You’ve never seen him mad. Viktor used to press every button Yakov has like it was a sport.”

Sara could imagine that well enough. She chuckled, “That would definitely make a difference – though I hope I never see him like that, honestly.”

“That’s fair,” Mila said as she reached out to tuck a loose lock of hair behind Sara’s ear. It was so casual, so intimate, that Sara felt warm instantly. She didn’t think it was magic, though.

“I didn’t know your strength was linguistics,” she said conversationally.

Mila’s lips twisted to the side. “It’s hard to describe, ‘linguistics’ isn’t really the right word. Like, Viktor used to be the strongest kinetic magic wielder around because of his skill in ballet. It’s like a superpowered kind of performer, really – he was just bursting with art and creativity, it basically dripped off him when he danced. It made everything he was trying to convey in movement become clear, that sort of thing. But when he decided to turn more to botany, his strengths went more to green magic. That performance element is still there, because this is _Viktor_ we’re talking about, but the extra magic and creation he has goes into actually bringing life into plants.”

Sara nodded, trying to puzzle it all together in her mind. She understood most of what Mila was saying, but her knowledge of how the magic worked was still bare at best. “And you?”

Mila shrugged again. “I’ve always been good at memorizing poetry and songs, limericks and things like that. My grandmother used to drill me in them, because that’s what _she_ was good at – sort of old world, storybook witch stuff. You know, speaking in riddles to terrorize children and what not,” Mila said the last while tickling Sara’s side, making her squirm and laugh.

She continued, “So even changing what song I wanted to hear playing on the radio became something of an exercise in intent and my knowledge of the song. Usually, with songs at least, I can get it to go on mindlessly to continued tracks in the same vein of my mind, like by the same artist, without having to focus my intent on every song.”

Sara moved her fingers in Mila’s loose grasp. “And focusing your intent, that’s what was able to help me with Michele,”

Mila brightened and nodded. There was relief in her features, if you knew where to look. “Exactly.”

Yuuri came in just as Vicchan was climbing up on Sara’s torso, distraught by the lack of attention he was getting. “Yakov is bearing witness to one of the famous Nikiforov cousin spats – he asked Yurio about his plans to continue skating in college,” he said conversationally.

Mila snorted. Sara, holding her chin up high so Vicchan couldn’t lick her in the mouth, asked, “Is he still trying to get Yurio to change from hockey to ice dance?”

Yuuri sighed and scooped his dog off of Sara, rescuing her from an enthusiastic face-washing. “I don’t know if you can even call it _trying_ if you’re half-in hysterics the whole time, but at least he’s passionate about it,”

Mila squeezed Sara’s thigh when she laughed, and Sara found herself comfortably slumped with her head on her shoulder. “He’s nothing if not passionate.”

Yuuri let out a sharp breath through his nose that was just on this side of being a snort. Vicchan was giving him the same enthusiastic doggy kisses he’d given Sara. “Right you are. Hey, are you two staying for dinner?”

Sara looked sideways up at Mila, questioning. They’d talked about it, but not settled on anything. Michele wasn’t expecting them back; he was waiting for Emil back at the little house. Mila’s fingers tightened on Sara’s leg.

“I think we’re going to do our own thing, but thanks for asking,” she chirped.

“We’ll be here tomorrow for sure, though,” Sara added.

Yuuri smiled, his chocolate eyes soft. “You two sure are something else together. Alright, Georgi is driving in tomorrow morning; it’s always a nightmare getting out of the City but I’m sure he’ll be here before noon.”

“Just Georgi?” Mila asked, putting her free arm over the back of the sofa. Sara hadn’t known there was anyone more than _just_ Georgi.

Yuuri’s face immediately screwed up. “ _Ugh_ , yeah. He and Anya are off-again. Do us all a favor and don’t mention her – we’re working on convincing Yurio not to.”

Mila turned to Sara’s questioning face. “Anya’s one of the other principals. They’re partnered together often – their Sleeping Beauty was a breakout performance for the company.”

“Oh, I remember reading about that in the _Times_ , actually,” Sara said, blinking in surprise as the memory came back to her. “I had no clue that was _your_ Georgi. He looked so _intense_.”

Mila and Yuuri exchanged a glance. “Yeah, that’s our Georgi alright,” Mila said.

  
  


**☾**

  
  


They left the Katsuki-Nikiforov residence just as Otabek was showing up to collect Yuri for dinner with his parents. It was looking more and more like snow outside, and even though it was a short walk from the Victory Garden to the bakery a chill was able to claw its fingers under Sara’s scarf. Mila had plans on how to fix that in double time at home, but she made do for the time being with the charm she knew to keep their hands warm.

Sara reacted the same way to magic every time, even though Mila pulled it off without flair and with as much normalcy as she could. Her lovely eyes would shine like fairy lights, and her lips would twitch against a smile. It was entrancing.

The longest part of the walk was always going up the back stairs to Mila’s front door. _So close yet so far_ … Mila always had plants hanging over the doorways of her apartment, drying them for one purpose or another, so it was really no surprise that she’d found an excellent specimen of mistletoe for the front door.

“Look,” she said in a deceivingly calm voice as she turned the lights on and stepped to the side so Sara could sidle in.

Sara looked left and right before following Mila’s gaze upward. A wry smile curved across her mouth in comprehension. “Oh, you don’t say?”

Mila shrugged, dumping her keys on the table by the door. Sara had been wondering if she even needed the keys, or if there was an easier, magical, way of opening the door. She couldn’t see Mila relying on that alone. “Can’t argue with tradition, right?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sara said, making her face into something mock-serious. Her eyebrows were so high, it was comical.

Mila was laughing when she pulled close, and when Sara kissed her, it was really the meeting of two smiles.

  
  


There was a warm mug of tea balanced on Sara’s stomach, lightly perfuming the air with flowers and herbs Mila had definitely told her the name of, only to have them go right through Sara’s mind. Mila was reading some battered, pocket-sized book in a language and font Sara couldn’t quite work out. The room was quiet, save for the occasional hum Mila would make to herself and the soft rumble of brit pop on the speakers. Jarvis Cocker’s voice was made for the yellow walls and slight ache you get in your neck from laying in someone’s lap. Mila’s apartment felt perfectly cozy, not a bit stuffy.

Just before dozing off completely, a thought occurred to Sara. She smiled a little to herself; it was just the kind of ridiculous thing that would probably earn her an eye-roll. “Mila?”

“Yes, dear?” Mila set her own mug of tea down on the side table and gave the end of Sara’s braid a tug.

“I was just wondering,” Sara said, opening her eyes to blink up at Mila, “You know, thinking about magic, if vampires exist?”

Mila’s eyes widened, and she looked off to a point of space. “ _Ooooh_ ,”

Immediately, Sara wondered if she’d crossed a line. “Mila? I’m sorry, I was just -”

“No, no,” Mila said, still staring unblinkingly at the rug. “I just never – oh _man_ , there was this guy I knew kinda by association when I was a kid? I can’t remember his name – it was _really_ Russian though, like Yegor or Oleg or something – and he was weird,”

Sara slowly sat up, careful not to spill her tea. “Really I was just – are you sure you’re alright?”

Mila smiled widely, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Yes! This is fascinating, I never really gave it too much thought – not my area of study, you know? But this old dude, he really might’ve been one, I don’t know.”

“Why do you think that?” Sara asked, positioning herself to sit comfortably opposite Mila, who had set down the odd little book was was gesturing widely, making visible, slightly shimmery eddies in the air.

“He was just fuckin’ _weird_ , always smelled like garlic. I thought he spoke yiddish at one point, but it was definitely not.”

“You don’t think that was just B.O.?” Sara asked, fighting a smile. Mila looked like the store cat at Bennett’s when they shined a laser for him. Slightly deranged, possibly feral. “And isn’t garlic a _deterrent_ for vampires?”

“No, like it was crazy. And I don’t know, reverse psychology? Shit. God. I need to ask Yakov about this.”

  
  


**☾**

  
  


Sara was awake before Mila. She pushed the pillows back against the headboard and sat up, looking over the room in the morning light. It was bright: rising sunlight on snow coming through the thin curtains. Sara should’ve been cold, but she was quite comfortable even with her bare skin. Next to her, Mila was sprawled on her stomach, one arm bolstered under the pillow and the other outstretched, fingers next to Sara’s. Her hair was wild, a mess of waves and snarls from Sara’s own fingers and the muss of sleep. She could tell when Mila began to wake; she saw it in the shift of her scapula, the way she sighed into the pillow.

“Are you comfortable?” Sara asked softly. Her voice was hoarse, rough with sleep. “Did you sleep alright?”

The duvet was half-off of Mila, exposing the smooth expanse of her back. One of her legs was dangling half off the bed. Mila gave her a muffled hum in response and burrowed a little deeper into the pillow.

“Your foot’s hanging off the bed,” Sara continued. Mila’s free hand found her arm and tugged. Sara obliged, sliding back down to lie next to her. Her hair was in her eyes but she couldn’t look away from Mila when she joked in a whisper, “Aren’t you afraid of a monster under the bed?”

Mila sighed and turned her face toward Sara’s, though her eyes were still shut. “No,” she said, and Sara can hear the pull of Russian on her tongue. “A monster would be stupid to stay here. Not when _I’m_ the witch of the house.”

A shiver went through Sara, just like one always did when she heard one of those affirmations of magic, of witchcraft. There was a joke in there, but it was weighted with some kind of truth. She reached out slowly, letting her fingertips hover before setting her hand onto Mila’s back. Everything felt delicate, as if wrapped in pale blue gossamer.

Mila was searching, feeling her way along the bed, still too sleepy and stubborn to open her eyes. She found Sara’s side, her hand warm and only slightly rough sliding over her skin. Sara’s stomach was awash in tingles, and it was an entirely different kind of magic. She let Mila wrap that arm around her, pull her over. They were nose to nose, Mila’s eyes still closed. Sara could almost feel her eyelashes on her cheeks, though. Her own eyes fluttered closed, and it’s blind that their mouths met.

Everything about Mila was warm, was drawing Sara in though they were both wrapped in the dregs of sleep. Slowly, she shifted, getting her leg out of reach of that imaginary monster. Sara ran her hand down Mila’s back, just ghosting her fingertips along Mila’s spine so that she shivered. _A goose on her grave._ Her breasts were so soft pressed against Sara’s own, and her leg slid up between Sara’s thighs. Sara’s breath caught in her throat and she broke the kiss and fought a shiver of her own. Mila chuckled, her chest jostling Sara’s. Her hand was traveling slowly from the small of her back, over her hip, down to replace the placement of her leg.

They found each other again and again.

Everything was still blue gossamer to Sara. It was all magic.

  
  


**☾**

  
  


They were almost late to the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s. Only Chris was left to arrive after them, and he was _always_ late. Emil and Michele had picked Sara up from Mila’s while they were driving around, talking and catching up, and Mila had collected Sara again in the afternoon.

“You’re more than welcome to come along, too,” Mila said, leaning across Sara to speak out the open car window. Sara turned down the stereo – which was aptly playing Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses – and looked over at Emil and Michele.

Emil was standing a little behind Michele, his hand resting casually on Michele’s shoulder. For whatever reason, Michele took to spluttering, and Emil had to answer for him.

“We’re gonna watch _Die Hard_. Mickey hasn’t seen it. And if he’s _awake_ – because he always falls asleep during movies – we’re gonna go look at Christmas lights.”

Michele looked up and over his shoulder at Emil and then back to the women. In a voice devoid of his general pompous flair, he said, “Sorry, we’ve got plans.”

When the car window was rolled up and the boys were headed back up the snowy yard to the front door, Mila waggled her eyebrows at Sara. “So, that was interesting.”

Sara’s mind was going a hundred miles an hour. She turned away from Mila to frown after her brother and childhood friend disappearing into the house. “What the hell did I miss while I was with you?”

Mila caught Sara’s hand and tugged until Sara looked back at her. Before Sara could muse any more, Mila was smattering kisses over her mouth and cheeks. “ _I_ don’t think you _missed_ anything, besides, we were _busy_.”

Sara’s snort turned into a peal of laughter as Mila’s kisses started traveling down her cheek and neck. “Mila! We’re going to be _late_ ,”

“I can’t help it,” Mila said, though she was trying to squash down her own laughter. She pulled away and smiled her true smile, the soft one that crinkled her eyes at the corners. “You look so gorgeous, and it’s the Solstice,”

Sara kissed her once (twice), properly, and then sat back and held Mila’s hand so it couldn’t wander. “You flatter me, but it’s alright. You look super hot, too, by the way.”

Mila chucked as she pulled away from the front of the Crispino’s house and started down the road to turn around and head back into town. “Thank you, _lyubov_. I had to find something that wouldn’t get washed out by the boys.”

“Oh, is Georgi like Viktor?” Sara asked, thinking of the rainbow highlighter he’d worn all summer.

Mila rolled her eyes, but her crinkled eyes and voice were fond. “Even worse. He’s – _ugh_ , you’ll see.”

Sara laughed openly and turned the music back up. Mila had some oddball holiday music playlist going, mostly with alternative bands from the mid 2000s bastardizing classic Christmas songs. When they’d settled into a nice silence and they were about halfway into town, Sara reached over and squeezed Mila’s leg.

“By the way,” she said, “you said this would run late, so I grabbed my overnight bag. Let’s swing by your place and drop it off before going to the Victory Garden.”

Mila’s eyes widened and her eyebrows shot up before she gave a smile to Sara that could be described as _lecherous_. “Did I mention the bakery is closed early today?”

And that was how they ended up late to the Katsuki-Nikiforov’s.

They could’ve theoretically snuck in quietly, because there was chaos as ever in the apartment, but Yuri singled them out.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he crowed, pointed (un)helpfully. “ _Look_ , they’ve been making out!”

Sara stood by the kitchen door with Makkachin watching as Mila, true to form, launched herself at the scrawny teen and caught him in a headlock so she could noogie him. He scrabbled against her and shouted in Russian, but didn’t put any of his height and hockey-player muscles into it, so he evidently didn’t mind too much.

“Now I have the second worst hair here,” he complained when Mila let him go. She snorted and pushed Yuri’s shoulder.

“Don’t bully him, he’s not even here,”

“ _Yeah_ he is,” Yuri countered, his green eyes dramatically wide. He turned over his shoulder and hollered, “Gosha!”

A man with an impressive brown quiff poked his head out of the living room. He had long, straight features like Viktor, an aristocratic set of his mouth, and dark eyes. “Yes? Oh, Mila, you’re here! Blessed Solstice,”

Mila reached out behind her for Sara’s hand even as she let the man – who, called ‘Gosha’ by Yuri or not, had to be Georgi – pull her into a hug. “Blessed Solstice, Gosha, how’re you?” she said into his chest.

Sara put her hand into the one Mila still had outstretched to her and looked up at Georgi. He was about Viktor’s height, too, but he seemed taller from the way he stood on the balls of his feet with his chest up and out.

“I’m good, and who are you?” he said, looking from Mila to Sara. Now Sara could see that his eyes weren’t exactly dark, but he had green eyeshadow that went up his browbone.

“I’m Sara Crispino – uh, Mila’s girlfriend,” Sara stuttered, reaching out to shake his hand.

To her surprise, Georgi didn’t shake her hand, but instead dropped a kiss onto her knuckles. “Oh, what a pleasure to meet the new half of a couple in love,” he crooned.

Oh, so that’s what Mila had been hinting at. Sara blinked over her shoulder at Mila while Georgi’s head was still bowed. Mila was turning red from the effort of not laughing. Thankfully, Yuuri came wandering over about then.

“You two made it,” he smiled, putting his hand on Georgi’s back so Georgi would finally let Sara’s had go.

Sara had the intense, unrealistic urge to wipe her hand on her dress. Georgi wasn’t gross by any means, but it just seemed like what to do after that experience. On autopilot, she kissed Yuuri’s cheek hello.

“Just getting acquainted with Georgi,” she said.

Yuuri gave her a knowing look. “Oh, of course. He arrived from Manhattan this morning.”

 _That’s right, I’m actually a fan of his,_ Sara remembered belatedly. She wondered how much of a minefield of grandioseness she’d be stepping into if she mentioned that. She was saved once again by one of the boys – this time, it was Yuri.

“Sara!” he crowed over Viktor’s playlist, as crowing seemed to be his method of communication that evening.

“Oh,” Sara said, looking between Georgi and Yuuri and Mila.

Mila had a funny set to her mouth, evidently still tamping down on her laughter, but she waved Sara toward the direction of Yuri’s voice.

Yuri was waiting for her with his hands on his hips. Vicchan was sitting by his feet, tail wagging, obviously trying to get some attention. Sara didn’t see anything wrong with stooping to scratch the dog’s ears before addressing her favorite cranky teenager.

“What’s up, Yurio?”

He gave a put-upon sigh and grabbed her arm, dragging her in the direction of the stairs. “I doubt Mila told you anything about the celebration tonight because she’s an _airhead_ , so I’m telling you now so you don’t make a fool of yourself.”

“Oh, thanks, Yurio,” Sara said, smiling at him when he glared over his shoulder to make sure she was listening. He narrowed his eyes, but there was no real irritation there.

“Anyway,” he huffed as if she hadn’t said anything, “we’re celebrating Yule. It’s not the same as the summer solstice was.”

Sara followed him up the stairs. “I figured, with it being six months later and the dead of winter.”

“’The dead’ is a good way to put it,” Yuri said cryptically with his trademark flare for the macabre. “It’s the night the spirits walk the earth. We gotta keep the Yule log burning to keep them at bay.”

Sara didn’t know how much of what Yuri was saying was metaphorical and how much was real, but she erred on the side of caution – she knew now that magic existed, so who was to say ghosts didn’t as well? They were at the top of the stairs, having passed through the second floor where the bedrooms were and gone straight to the roof. It smelled like pipe smoke and evergreens.

“And why is it that the dead – the spirits – choose the solstice to come out?” Sara asked.

Yuri didn’t turn around. “It’s the _solstice_ , obviously. You _know_ , longest night of the year?”

That did indeed ring a bell. It was cold and clear on the roof, the sun sinking toward the horizon even though it wasn’t that late in the afternoon. “So…?

Yuri paced around the tarp-covered patio furniture. “The boundary between the spirit world and our world is at its weakest on the longest night. In Norse tradition, it has to do with the death of Baldr. But the resolution is this: we burn the Yule log, keep the spirits at bay, and burn away the last six months. When the log is spent and the sun is risen, it’s a new year.”

The idea was so foreign and so implacably poignant that Sara found she didn’t have anything to say. Yuri watched her through his messy, long blond hair. Sara was doing her best to look as aloof and at ease as the teenager in spite of the chill. She shivered anyway.

“Ugh, here,” Yuri huffed, reaching out his hand. Warily, Sara took it. As soon as she touched his fingertips, she was greeted with an enveloping sensation of warmth over her whole body.

“Oh! I – I didn’t know...” She stammered dumbly.

Yuri rolled his eyes and looked away from her. “Yeah, of course I’m like them. I’m just not a show-off like stupid Viktor.”

Sara didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, or even worse, regret the olive branch he’d extended to her. She squared her shoulders, which was much easier now that she wasn’t shivering.

“So, what else do I need to know so I don’t muck up this… new year celebrations?”

“ _Well_ ,” Yuri said, giving her the kind of sideways, through-the-lash look Sara had come to associate with Mila and mischievousness, “First of all, mention Anya every chance you get. Georgi _loves_ talking about her.”

Sara thought back to Mila and Yuuri exchanging wrinkled noses at her name. Of course Yuri was back to fucking with her. She just wouldn’t let him know how much she already had been told. So she gave his hand a little squeeze and flashed him a smile. “Okay! Sounds good to me.”

When Yuri dissolved into giggles, Sara knew it was at her expense – but that was alright.

Yakov and Nikolai had an interesting dynamic. From the impression that Sara got, they’d known each other a very long time, though they weren’t extremely chummy. Still, there was an easiness to the way they barked at each other in Russian, and the way Yakov stayed out of the way while Nikolai rolled out a sheet of gingerbread, and the way they each went to refill the other’s drink without even needing to look and see if it had been emptied. It made sense, though, if Yakov had known Viktor and Georgi since they were quite young – and possibly even Yuri and Viktor’s parents.

When Chris arrived, it was with a big brown paper bag from the liquor store. He kissed everyone hello, even going so far as to remove Yakov’s bowler hat and kiss the top of his bald head. Yakov grumbled at him for arriving so close to nightfall, but he sounded sort of fond anyway.

“We’re making wassail!” Chris announced, and that was enough to finally get Viktor out of the kitchen (where he hadn’t been helping so much as trying to sneak cookie dough while his grandfather wasn’t looking).

“No, we’re not,” Yuuri countered, gently redirecting his husband away from the breakfast nook where Chris was unloading bottles and toward the living room. “It’s nightfall, so it’s time to light the Yule log. _Then_ we can make wassail.”

There was much more ritual than the midsummer party had had; Sara was the newest one to the group, and she looked on everything with wide, curious eyes. Mila was at her side, literally buzzing with excitement. Her fingertips were more electric than usual when she slid her hand into Sara’s, and she was rocking on the balls of her feet. It was like she was barely anchored to the ground, like she’d float away if she didn’t concentrate on staying on her feet.

“You didn’t misplace the starter again, did you?” Yakov rumbled, coming out of the kitchen. He spoke in english, likely for Sara’s benefit. Behind him, Nikolai’s face cracked in a grin.

Viktor’s cheeks were pink under his seasonable gold and silver highlighter. “ _No_! And that was only once, it was doomed to be a bad year anyway, I was like twenty.”

Yuuri and Chris exchanged a pointed glance and snickered into their hands. Georgi didn’t look too bothered; Sara had the impression the same thing might’ve happened to him before. Yuri, who had evidently not heard of this before, was looking from his cousin to his godfather with wide, gleeful eyes. And to Sara’s surprise, Mila raised her free hand.

“I was in charge this year! I’ve got the starter log.”

They all watched as Mila went ferreting about the apartment for Sara’s oversized purse, which she dug through until she produced a small carved wood box.

“Here it is!” she said, holding it aloft. The box wasn’t much larger than her hand.

Sara frowned. “When did that get there?”

“When we stopped at home for you to drop off your things I got it from the shelf. You didn’t notice, I guess, and then we got a little distracted and I forgot to mention it.”

Chris wolf-whistled. “Oh, we’re having _slumber_ parties now, girls?” and at the same time Yuri huffed, “I _told_ you Mila was an airhead.”

Sara resisted the urge to stomp on Chris’ foot. Mila, though, stuck her tongue out at him and, as an afterthought, wagged it suggestively. Sara was going to stomp on _her_ foot next. Yakov was pinching the bridge of his nose.

Thankfully, Yuuri took charge. He took the box from Mila and opened it, revealing a small, burnt piece of wood.

“It’s what’s left from last year’s Yule log,” Yuuri explained to Sara. “It’s used to light the new fire.”

“Is the Yule log ready?” Nikolai asked, leaning around Yakov.

Viktor put his hand on his grandfather’s shoulder. “Yura helped us decorate it earlier. It’s in the living room.”

As a group, they filed into the living room. Sitting on the low coffee table was a lovely, fat log. Even with all the time she’d spent at the Victory Garden, Sara couldn’t identify the wood type. It was decorated with sprigs of evergreen collected from the remaining trees in the shop. There were a couple bundles of pine needles, tied with neat twine bows.

The small fireplace had been cleaned out, swept of all other detritus and ash to expose the heavy brick bottom and 1920s hearth tiling. It was so clear to Sara that the fireplace was waiting, ready, for the Yule log.

“How’s it look, everyone?” Viktor asked.

Georgi clapped a hand to the shoulders of the blond cousins. “That’s a _perfect_ Yule log, the _most_ perfect.”

Mila exchanged a small, crinkly smile with Sara. Georgi was definitely one for hyperbole – it would be fun to see him and Chris interact the rest of the night.

Yakov and Nikolai shouldered around the younger people to each take one end of the Yule log and move it together into the fireplace. There was a neat metal stand for logs there, which held the Yule log perfectly. Viktor came next and chucked the pine bundles in without any sort of ceremony.

“Are we going to put in bundles with intent or for cleansing now or later?” Chris asked.

“I thought we’d do that on our own time, as we’ll have all night,” Yuuri answered. For someone who claimed not to have any special power, he sure seemed at home in this environment.

“Mila,” Yakov said, beckoning her over. “It’s your turn to light the fire.”

Mila drew herself up tall, shoulders back. She moved like she was a dancer, like Georgi and Viktor, across the living room. Yuuri held the box out to her so she could take the stubby, burnt piece of the old Yule log, and Yakov produced a boxy metal lighter from his pocket. Sara was on the edge of the couch, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hand.

Yakov’s lighter flipped open with a heavy, satisfying _clunk_.

“Are you still smoking cigars?” Viktor asked his godfather, who gave him a stink eye. “I thought you were going to quit.”

“It’s a pipe now, which feels pretty festive,” Yuri answered for him.

“Georgi is my favorite of all of you,” Yakov grumbled.

Mila made a face over her shoulder, but she didn’t argue. She was busy trying to get the lighter to catch. No matter how she pressed on it and tried to get the flint to strike, it didn’t light. It didn’t even flicker.

“Yakov, I think your lighter’s broken. Should I just…?”

Yakov snatched the lighter back. “No, don’t. That’s the one you have to manually light, I forgot,” he explained.

Manually – Sara rolled the word over in her mind. _He must mean to send a spark from your own fingertips_ , she thought. How divine. How wondrous. Magic.

“That’s alright,” Yuuri was saying, darting away to the sideboard and scrabbling through a drawer. “Here’s a regular lighter we have for the candles,”

The long-nosed, lime green plastic lighter was passed to Mila, who swirled it around her finger like an old-fashioned cowboy might sling around his gun.

“Are we all ready?” she asked, looking over her shoulder again. When her gaze drifted over Sara, she winked.

There was a general murmur of confirmation, so Mila squeezed the trigger on the lighter until it clicked and produced a flame. She held it to the little piece of burned wood, the old Yule log. Sara didn’t think it would catch, not on its own, but to her surprise it did. Satisfied with the little flame crackling over the burned surface, Mila kneeled by the fireplace. Yuuri held the metal chain curtain back so she could reach in and place the residual log against the new Yule log. The pine needles caught first, turning gray and starting to curl in on themselves even as Mila was withdrawing her fine arms.

The Yule log had been lit. The celebration had begun.

Mila turned, still on her knees, and looked up at everyone else, a bright smile on her face. “Blessed Solstice!”

“So we’re making wassail now, right?” Chris asked without missing a beat, raising a perfectly groomed eyebrow over the rim of his fine wire glasses. Yuuri looked, for a moment, like he was going to throw the lighter Mila had just handed back to him.

  
  


Somehow, between wassail making and the different members of the family splitting off to go into the living room and burn their intents with the yule log, Sara ended up nestled up with Georgi. They were on the roof, because it was late and Mila had impressed upon Sara that she had to stay awake all night, and the roof seemed the best place to do so. Georgi and Sara were sharing one of the oversized throws that normally lived in a cedar chest in Yuuri and Viktor’s bedroom. He kept her mug of wassail warm with a touch whenever she indicated that it was getting cool. In return, she let him talk about Anya.

Who knew ballet dancers were so dramatic! How did they even have the time?

Sara _really_ wanted to ask Georgi if he knew Misty Copeland personally, but it was hard to steer the conversation.

Mila found them when Georgi seemed on the brink of tears. Sara didn’t know how much reminding him once again that his makeup would run would prevent him crying. Mila, though, seemed amused to see them together.

“There’s food, if you guys have had enough to drink,” she said by way of greeting.

Georgi looked like he might decline on her behalf, so Sara said, “We’ve definitely had enough wassail, I think.”

“Good, Nikolai made latkes. Yurio insisted.”

Georgi seemed to perk up a little. “I can break my diet for latkes, I think.”

“Calories don’t count on Yule,” Mila answered, coming over to help get her girlfriend and Georgi to their feet. “I don’t think so, at least.”

“What ever happened with the cookies Mr. Plisetsky was baking earlier?” Sara asked, linking her arm with Georgi’s. They hadn’t drank enough to be unsteady, but he was warm and being close felt like the right thing to do.

Mila laughed, leaning around Georgi to wrinkle her nose at Sara. “Vitya’s been eating them by the handful. And Yakov. They keep missing each other at the table, though. I’m sure they’re both blaming Makkachin.”

  
  


The Katsuki-Nikiforov apartment was ultimately cozy, but there were just enough cold spots throughout the rooms to keep you on your toes. Sara was on the couch with her feet in Chris’s lap, balancing a plate of fig and rosemary pastry on her knees. Chris kept saying he was going to rub her feet and then getting distracted, talking with his hands. Mila was tying knots in Yurio’s hair next to Sara. Yakov was posted up in the armchair, Vicchan nestled in his lap. Makkachin had gone upstairs to sleep in Yuuri and Viktor's bed.

They’d crowded around, ready to hear what Mila said would be a good ghost story and what Viktor kept threatening would be unsavory stories about when they were all children. The yule log crackled pleasantly in the little fireplace, keeping the room perfumed with pine and cedar. Viktor and Georgi, who Yakov would have the most dirt on, should he decide to tell family stories, were sat where he couldn’t see them and were making faces at one another.

Sara didn’t have anyone she was close to in her family, age-wise or even socially, besides Michele. She felt an old melancholy, one kept buried almost always, stir as she watched the godchildren. It took her back to Friendsgiving, to holding her breath watching the way Michele interacted with the rest of her found family, to being surrounded by bustling, red-orange warmth and chaos.

She missed the first part of the story Yakov was telling, which was fine enough because his thickly accented voice traveled into pockets of Russian and Yiddish. What brought her back wasn’t Chris finally giving her the promised foot-rub, but Mila’s steady presence against her side.

They were staying up _all_ night – that’s what Mila said they _had_ to do. Yuri kept insisting loudly that he wasn’t tired at all, but he also looked like he was going to have a meltdown when Nikolai told him that he couldn’t have a third cup of coffee. Yuuri and Georgi had energetically danced around the living room for a spell, Viktor’s playlist of 80’s music cranked way up and Chris giving enthusiastic wolf-whistles, but even that had died down. Yuuri and Viktor ended up swaying together in small circles on the rug, leaning heavily against each other and talking too low to hear. It was such an intimate scene that Sara couldn’t let her eyes rest on them. Georgi had teared up and left the room.

Yakov and Nikolai were in the kitchen, speaking to each other in rapid Russian. The men had seen many Solstices; they were old hats at staying up. Mila translated some of what they were saying into Sara’s ear. It seemed they were catching up, discussing what was happening back in Moscow. Sara wondered if Nikolai missed it. Did she miss Italy? She used to. Now, though… now, her home wasn’t across the ocean. Her home wasn’t even Brooklyn, not anymore.

It was late – it was early. Had this been a normal night and day, Sara would’ve been waking up in her bed to go to a morning class or a shift at Bennett’s. As it was, she was numbly clinging to consciousness.

“Look!” Yuri shouted suddenly from his cocoon of blankets on the couch (Nikolai had tried in vain to get him to clean the kitchen, to help himself stay awake. Yuri had scowled and grabbed his headphones). Yuri had lowered his phone and was pointing across the apartment, out the window. A thin ribbon of pink had appeared at the horizon. Sunrise was coming.

Yuuri and Viktor turned to look at the Yule log. It was still burning, just barely, only little more than the lump of charcoal that had been brought from the box at the start of the night.

“Oh, here we go!” Mila said, grabbing Sara’s hand and jumping to her feet.

Sara followed much slower, her knees and hips popping as she rose. They’d been nestled together at the other end of the couch from Yuri, listening to Georgi and Chris critique different costumes the ballet company had worn over the season. For the last half-hour, Sara had held half a fig roll in her hand but was too tired to eat it. How had she used to stay up all night in high school? When had she become an old woman?

Mila’s new vigor brought some life back to Sara, though. She squeezed Mila’s hand, feeling the stirring of sparks under skin. Magic. Magic.

“You go,” Yakov said from the breakfast nook, waving a gnarly, square hand. “We will stay with the log.”

Sara looked at Mila and then Yuuri in askance; the latter already had Viktor by the arm and Chris by the sweater cuff.

“The roof,” Yuuri said, answering Sara’s unasked question. H _e insists he’s not like these guys,_ Sara thought as she turned from her old friend and followed her girlfriend to the stairs, _but he can read people like no one I know_.

It was bitterly cold on the roof. Was that an adage somewhere – it’s coldest before the sun rises? Mila was warmth enough, though, her touch grounding and golden as a summer sun. Slowly, they all gathered on the roof, looking out over Eidolon to the east.

Mila leaned her chin on Sara’s shoulder. “Did Yurio tell you that this is our New Year’s celebration?”

Sara nodded.

“Are you ready for the new year?” Mila asked, her breath a warm cloud against Sara’s skin. Sara smiled, just being close to her.

“I think so.”

“Is this all very weird to you?”

Sara shrugged, partially just to jostle Mila. Mila’s response, of course, was to wrap herself more securely around Sara. She said, “I’m not used to celebrating New Year’s before Christmas. Does this mean you’re not coming to my house to watch the ball drop?”

“If you’re asking if I’ll be your New Year’s kiss, of _course_ I will be.”

Sara laughed and leaned her head back against Mila’s. Around them, the sky was lightening to streaks of pink and lavender. Chris had brought up two cups of coffee, though Sara suspected there might be Bailey’s in them because he was offering the cups to everyone but Yuri. Viktor and Georgi were laughing about something, and Yuri was discovering the knots Mila had left in his hair. Yuuri had his phone out and was taking pictures of the cold winter sky – and when he caught Sara’s eye, he took a picture of her and Mila, wrapped so close together they were like one being.

Sara had a clear thought pop into her mind: this, exactly this, was all she needed in life.People she loved, and who loved her. For the first time in a long time, or maybe ever, Sara knew where she was in life and was excited to be on the track she was on. It was going to be a happy new year, indeed.

  
  


**☾**

  
  


  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you squint enough to pick out some emimike? Was there enough Georgi for you? I do love that guy, he's interesting to write. Some of the little pieces in this chapter have been written for longer than the fic was conceptualised, so it was a treat for me to add them in :)
> 
> I hope you all had lovely solstices, happy hannukahs, and merry christmases. This is going up closer to new year's, and I hope 2020 is bright and forgiving and healthy for everyone.
> 
> Expect a little epilogue; I don't think this is the right ending ;)

**Author's Note:**

> My friend Rachel suggested a modern witch prompt to me in October 2018. I made it into a MilaSara drabble, and after writing most of it, I ended up abandoning it. At long last, here it is. This is for her, because she's supported me in everything I do for over a decade. I'm so grateful for that and all other support I've received!
> 
> It only took me more than a year, but here's my pet milasara project. The working title was "spooky salami" for the witchy content, but it really became such a study of tenderness and warm interactions with a found family.


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